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MACAULAY'S 
ESSAY ON WARREN HASTINGS 



fHacmillan's ^locket lEnjglisl) (Classics. 



A Series of English Texts, edited for use in Secondary 
Schools, with Critical Introductions, Notes, etc. 



l6mo. Levanteen. 25c. each. 



Addison's Sir Roger de Coverley. 

Browning's Shorter Poems. 

Burke's Speech on Conciliation. 

Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, 

Carlyle's Essay on Burns. 

Coleridge's The Ancient Mariner. 

Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans. 

De Quincey's Confessions of an Opium-Eater. 

Dryden's Palamon and Arcite. 

Eliot's Silas Marner. 

Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield. 

Irving's The Alhambra. 

Longfellow's Evangeline. 

Lowell's The Vision of Sir Launfal. 

Macaulay's Essay on Addison, 

Macaulay's Essay on Milton. 

Macaulay's Essay on Warren Hastings. 

Milton's Comus, Lycidas, and Other Poems, 

Milton's Paradise Lost, Books I and IL 

Pope's Homer's Iliad. 

Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies. 

Scott's Ivanhoe. 

Scott's The Lady of the Lake* 

Scott's Marmion. 

Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. 

Shakespeare's Macbeth. 

Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. 

Shelley and Keats : Poems. 

Tennyson's Idylls of the King. 

Tennyson's The Princess. 



OTHERS TO FOLLOW. 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY 

ON 

WARRE^ HASTINGS 



EDITED 

WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES 

BY 

MRS. MARGARET J. FRICK 

Head of English Department, Los Angeles High 
School, California 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 
1900 

All rights reserved 



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Bt the macmillan company. 






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Norwood Mass. U.S.A. 



it 



CONTENTS 

Introduction: page 

Life of Macaulay ix 

India xxxiii 

The British in India . . . . . . . lii 

Indian Terms . Ixi 

Macaulay 's Works . . . ^ . . . . Ixii 

Contemporaneous History ..... Ixvii 

Bibliography . . . . . .■ . . Ixxiv 

A Suggested Method of Study Ixxvi 

Map Ixxviii 

Warren Hastings ........ 1 

Notes . . 203 

Index to Notes 225 

vii 



INTRODUCTION 



LIFE OF MACAULAY 

Macaulay in one of his letters quotes the Specta- 
'tor as observing, ^'We never read an author with 
much zest, unless v^e are acquainted with his sur- 
roundings." Many writers seem forced to give us 
their " circumstances " in their writings. Macaulay 
does not. He was never limited by his environment. 
In all the volumes given to the public by this most 
versatile writer, we can scarcely find a hint of his own 
character and surroundings. It is in his private let- 
ters and diary only that he freely gives us his personal 
life. From these we may trace the growth of the man. 
Never was there a life more completely self -directed 
than Macaulay's, nor a success more surely earned. 

A short biography can do little more than refer to 
the logical growth of his greatness : his enthusiastic 
literary work; the high character that gave him en- 
trance to Parliament, the quick grasp of public ques- 
tions, and the far-seeing, honorable stand that made 

ix 



X INTRODUCTION 

him so powerful while there and led to his appoint- 
ment in India; the unremitting application and 
clear strength of mind that made his criminal code 
for India a blessing to millions of people. Still less 
can it tell how, during the twenty years of his busy 
life as a leader in Parliament and in the midst of his 
endless administration of duties in India, he always 
found time to entertain his friends, to read the classics 
of many lands in the native tongues, and to write 
thousands of pages of essays, poetry, and history. 
This sketch aims merely at giving an impression of 
some of the characteristics of the man and an outline 
of the most important events of his career. One 
desiring to study more fully his admirable life and 
character will enjoy Macaulay^s Life and Letters, a 
collection of his letters, extracts from his diary, and 
letters to him, edited by Otto Trevelyan, the son of his 
sister Hannah. 

Thomas Babington Macaulay was born at Rothley 
Temple, Leicestershire, October 25, 1800. His great- 
grandfather and grandfather were Scotch ministers. 
From them he seems to have inherited, among other 
honest opinions, their personal creed that they " had 
no notion of people being in earnest in good profes- 
sions if their practice belied them." His father, 
Zachary Macaulay, was a quiet, stern man of very 
strong political convictions and absolutely disinter- 



LIFE OF MACAULAY XI 

ested adherence to them. A brief residence in Jamaica 
in his youth had acquainted him with the cruelties 
practised on the slaves there. After his return to 
England, through the columns of the Christian Ob- 
server, of which he was editor, he labored earnestly to 
force legislation to free the slaves of the West Indies. 
This brought him into close association with Wilber- 
force and other political reformers who were working 
for the same end. His home was a centre for con- 
sultation for the members of Parliament who lived on 
the Surrey side of London. Thus young Macaulay 
was admitted to the intimacy of politicians while he 
was still a child, and was made familiar w^ith the 
workings of Parliament. His mother gave the boy 
the love and petting his affectionate nature craved, 
and she recognized the unusual activity of his mind. 
How could any mother be blind to the precocity of a 
child of three years who spent his happiest hours 
lying before the fire with a piece of bread and butter 
in his hand, reading from a book open before him on 
the rug ; and who, when eight years old, had memo- 
rized all of Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel and Mar- 
mion, unconsciously, simply through the delight in 
reading them ? Fortunately for him both his father 
and his mother had the wisdom to refrain from 
parading his accomplishments, and they insisted on 
a like treatment from their friends and the child's 



xii INTR OD UCTION 

tutors. There were eight other chiklren, three brothers 
and five sisters. Thomas was the eldest, and the idol 
of all the rest. He was the sunshine of the family, 
they said, and when Tom was away there was never 
any fun at all, or anything worth doing. 

Hannah More may be regarded as his first literary 
patron. She treated him as a child, but rewarded his 
poetic efforts by presenting to him his first books to 
start a library. His first hero was his uncle, General 
Colin Macaulay, who was retired from service in 
India. This nephew of ten evidently desired more 
fighting for his hero, for he hinted in verse : — 

" For many a battle shall be lost and won, 
Ere yet thy glorious labors shall be done." 

When Macaulay was about thirteen years old he was 
sent from home to a private school. At this time 
begins the long series of letters which serve to make 
up the real biography of his life. These first letters 
tell of his studies and his readings, and many of them 
disclose the intense homesickness of this home-loving 
boy. In one addressed to his mother he writes : "Every- 
thing I read or hear or see brings home to my mind. 
You told me I should be happy when I once came 
here, but not an hour passes in which I do not shed 
tears at thinking of home. Tell me in your next, 
expressly, if you can, whether or no there is any like- 



LIFE OF MACAULAY xiii 

lihood of my coming home before the holidays; if 
your approbation of my request depends upon my 
advancing in study I will work like a cart-horse." 

In 1818 he entered Trinity College, Cambridge. 
There his love of literature and his vivid interest 
in outside political affairs seem fairly balanced. 
He took many prizes, but lost many that others 
thought he deserved. The losses he seems to have 
taken philosophically, for in later years he wrote, " If 
a man brings away from Cambridge self-knowledge, 
accuracy of mind, and habits of strong intellectual 
exertion, he has gained more than if he had made a 
display and show of superficial scholarship ; for, after 
all, what a man does at Cambridge is in itself noth- 
ing." He took his A.B. degree in 1822, and was 
elected to a fellowship in Trinity in 1824. Two 
changes had come to him while he was in college. 
When he entered, his father was in affluent circum- 
stances. By mismanagement somewhere the business 
in which the money was invested failed. Thomas 
and his brother Henry ultimately paid off the father's 
debts, but upon Thomas fell the support of the family. 
While waiting for his fellowship he did some tutoring. 
When the fellowship came, its three hundred pounds 
a year, with about three hundred that he made by his 
writing, enabled the family to live happily, if not 
luxuriously. Of his assuming this charge his biog- 



Xiv INTRODUCTION 

rapher says : " He quietly took up the burden which 
his father was unable to bear, and before many years 
had elapsed the fortunes of all for whose welfare 
he considered himself responsible were abundantly 
assured. In the course of the efforts which he ex- 
pended on the accomplishment of this result he un- 
learned the very notion of framing his method of 
life with a view to his own pleasure ; and such was 
his high and simple nature that it may well be 
doubted whether it ever crossed his mind that to live 
wholly for others was a sacrifice at all." His sister's 
tribute is, "Those were years of intense happiness; 
if there were money troubles, they did not touch us. 
We traversed every part of the city, Islington, Clerk- 
en well, and the parks, returning just in time for a six 
o'clock dinner. What anecdotes he used to pour out 
about every street and court and square and alley ! 
Then after dinner he always walked up and down the 
drawing-room between us, chatting till tea-time. Our 
noisy mirth, his wretched puns, so many a minute, 
so many an hour ! " 

The other change was of political opinion. He, 
like his father, was a Tory, but before the end of his 
first year at Cambridge he had been converted to 
Whig principles. It was a time of extreme views, 
when riots were occurring in all the large cities ; the 
cry was " Bread or Blood," and the famous " Six Acts " 



LIFE OF MACAULAY XV 

had been passed; but though. Macaulay had always 
been a reformer and had now turned Whig, his mind 
was cool and well balanced, so that at no time was he 
a revolutionist. 

It was during his college life that his contributions 
to KnigJifs Quarterly Magazine began. These earliest 
writings show the essential features of that direct, 
lucid "style" which has since come to be famous. 
The Battle of Ivry, The Battle of Naseby, and Tlie Con- 
versation of Mr. Abraham Cowley and Mr. John Milton 
touching the Great Civil War were published in this 
magazine. His father disapproved of such light lit- 
erature as poetry and essays, and he very strongly 
disapproved of Knighfs Quarterly Magazine. Macau- 
lay's answers to his father's letters of remonstrance 
are gentle and respectful. ^Occasionally, though, he 
breaks forth, as in one letter : " Consistency with a 
vengeance ! The reading of modern poetry and nov- 
els is complained of as exciting a worldly disposition 
and preventing, ladies from reading Dryden's Fables ! " 
Still, the disapproval of those he loved pained him, 
and it must have been relief as well as pride that 
made him promise his father a "piece of secret his- 
tory." The editors of the Edinburgh Review, a lib- 
eral publication which wielded the greatest power in 
social, political, and literary circles, had been looking 
about for a new writer who should be young, clever, 



XVi INTRODUCTION 

and not a Tory. Macaulay's writings in Knight'* s 
Quarterly Magaziyie attracted them, and the "piece of 
secret history" was the news of an invitation from, 
the editors of the Edinburgh Review to write for them.'l 

His first contribution, the essay on Milton, made 
him famous. Its very youthful exuberance of enthu- 
siasm for Milton, whom he loved and admired, was 
warmly welcomed by the friends of the great poet, 
for they felt the need at that time of some appre- 
ciative partisan to contest the harsh judgment set 
forth in Dr. Johnson's Life of Milton. We still 
read and admire this brilliant essay, but it is only^ 
by remembering the lack of popular reading in Ma-| 
caulay's time and comparing this essay on Milton 
with the other essays and biographies of the day that 
we can understand the surprise and pleasure it gave 
to the reading public. The grudging compliment of 
Jeffrey, the reviewer, "The more I think, the less I 
can conceive where you picked up that style ! " shows 
the impression it made on the critics. From the put 
lication of the Milton in 1825 Macaulay was for twent} 
years a steady contributor to the Edinburgh Revietv. 
In it were first published over forty of his best-known 
poems and essays, written regularly through all the 
years that were apparently full of the j)ublic duties 
of a member of Parliament. 

Macaulay was called to the bar in 1826, but took 



LIFE OF MACAULAY XVll 

little interest in law, preferring to spend liis time 
under the gallery of the House of Commons. He 
seems always to have thrown all his tremendous 
energy into the subject in which he had a present 
interest, and he refused to dissipate his power even 
in what at times appeared to others as the things he 
ought to do. Thus at this time, when he was ostensi- 
bly preparing himself to be an advocate, he did little 
reading in law ; but later, when he was sent to India 
and knew that he was to be a lawgiver there, he 
mastered on his voyage the necessary branches of the 
law in principle and minutest detail. One who knew 
him best said of him : "' Throughout life he never 
really applied himself to any pursuit that was against 
the grain." 

Though he had but little law practice, his fellow- 
ship, his writings for the Edinburgh Review, and the 
Commissionership of Bankruptcy that a friend had 
secured for him brought him almost one thousand 
pounds ayear,-suflScient for the needs of himself and 
the family, but no more. He was now thirty years old, 
and all his life he had had a keen interest in political 
questions. This was the exciting time of the " Rotten 
Boroughs," when the " Test Act " had just been re- 
pealed and the " Beform Bill " was seething, and it is 
not to be wondered at that Macaulay felt his strength 
and longed for an opportunity to take an active part ; 



xvill INTRODUCTION 

but it seemed a hopeless longing, as he had no money 
to buy a seat in Parliament, and among politicians he 
was almost unknown. Fortunately his writings had 
made him a friend. Lord Lansdowne, who said: "The 
Milton and especially the articles on Mill have so im- 
pressed me that I wish to be the one to introduce 
tlieir author to public life by offering him a seat in 
Parliament for the borough of Calne, and as it is his 
high moral and private character which has deter- 
mined me to make the offer, I wish in no respect to 
influence his votes, but to leave him quite at liberty 
to act according to his conscience." So in 1830 the 
House of Commons received one of its great orators 
and far-seeing statesmen, and Macaulay's wish was 
gratified. 

His first speech was in favor of removing all civil 
disabilities from the Jews. In this his maiden effort 
in Parliament he used with great skill his favorite 
device for overpowering an opponent. Placing his 
adversary's statements on one side of the scales, he 
heaps his own counter-statements and deductions on 
the other, until the listener or reader who is following 
his argument feels that Macaulay's side of the scales 
is weighted to the ground, while his opponent's is left 
in mid-air. This first speech called forth many com- 
pliments from the older members, which might have 
emboldened another man ; but though Macaulay loved 



LIFE OF MACAULAY xix 

to talk he was too modest and had too much common 
sense to appear on the floor of the House unless his 
voice seemed to be needed. 

His great opportunity arose in the very constitution 
of the House itself. The House of Commons was 
formed in the thirteenth century, the summons read- 
ing, ^'two knights from every shire," "two burgesses 
from every city, borough, and leading town." In the 
five hundred years since, no reorganization of the 
House had been made, though some of the boroughs 
that still sent representatives had lost all of their 
inhabitants, and other small boroughs had been created 
by sovereigns who needed votes in the House. On the 
other hand, many great cities had grown up in dis- 
tricts not provided for originally, and these masses of 
citizens were still unrepresented. In the eighteenth 
century such men as Chatham and Burke had worked 
on the problem of the reform of the House, until this 
subject had been crowded out by consideration of the 
troubles with France ; but for ten years previous to 
Macaulay's coming to the House one reform bill after 
another had been brought forward and rejected. The 
country was demanding more and more urgently a 
change ; but the Tory Ministry and the House of Lords 
with the unref ormed House of Commons were against it. 

At the beginning of Macaulay's second session in 
the House of Commons the Whigs were returned by a 



XX INTHODVCTION 

large majority, and the Tory Ministry was forced to 
resign. Under the new Whig Ministry Lord John 
Russell's Reform Bill came up. This bill gave a 
franchise to many hitherto unrepresented cities and 
boroughs ; but the clause in it which disfranchised 
wholly or partially one hundred and ten boroughs 
was pronounced, by the leaders of the Opposition, so 
extravagant that they ridiculed any suggestion that 
the bill could be passed. March 2, 1831, Macaulay 
made the first of his speeches on this Reform Bill. 
As his Milton had won him immediate recognition 
as a literary man, so this speech gave him distinction 
at once among the orators and statesmen of England. 
The Speaker of the House sent for him and told him 
that he had never seen the House in such a state of 
excitement. Sir Robert Peel and Sir Thomas Denman 
complimented him in stately terms. But the greatest 
compliment paid to this and his following reform 
speeches was, that the leaders of the Opposition felt 
called upon to devote more time to answering his 
speeches than to attacking those of the older debaters. 
To Macaulay's great satisfaction this Reform Bill 
carried. 

The following years he was, as he always had been, 
a strenuous worker. Besides his duties in the House 
he had other official duties, and his political honors 
had given him entrance to the best London society. 



LIFE OF MACAULAY Xxi 

His letters give pictures of breathless pauses in the 
House till a majority of one sends them laughing, 
crying, and huzzaing into the lobby, or of such a 
state as this : " Toward eight in the morning the 
Speaker was almost fainting. . . . Old Sir Thomas 
Baring sent for his razor and Benett for his nightcap ; 
they were both resolved to spend the whole day in the 
House rather than give way. If the Opposition had 
not yielded in two hours half of London would have 
been in Old Palace Yard." Other pictures he gives 
us of dinners with Lord Grey and Lord John Russell, 
of breakfasts in the beautiful home of Rogers the 
poet, of music parties where he heard the first flute 
player in England and "pianoforte strumming by 
the first pianoforte strummer," of meetings with 
Talleyrand and Sydney Smith, Tom Moore and Tom 
Campbell, and of innumerable courtesies from that 
haughty old aristocrat. Lady Holland. The political 
reward for Macaulay's services on the Reform Bill was 
an appointment on the Board of Control in the East 
India affairs. 

In the midst of these social and political successes 
which he so frankly enjoyed, his simple creed of vot- 
ing for the best interest of the country endured several 
severe tests. In each case he seems to have realized 
and deplored the consequences to himself, but did not 
allow them to influence his actions. His own vote 



XXU INTRODUCTION 

assisted in abolishing the office by which he held his 
Coinmissionership of Bankruptcy, at a time when he 
was not earning much by his writing and within a 
few months of the expiration of his income from the 
fellowship. A still stronger temptation to consider 
self was withstood when he decided to send in his 
resignation, so that he might go upon the floor of 
the House and oppose a measure brought in by his 
own party, a slavery bill that did not come up to the 
rigid requirements of his father and other Abolitionists. 
Trevelyan says : " During the crisis of the West India 
Bill Zachary Macaulay and his son were in constant cor- 
respondence. There is something touching in the pic- 
ture which these letters present of the older man (whose 
years were coming to a close in poverty, which was the 
consequence of his having always lived too much for 
others), discussing quietly and gravely how and when 
the younger was to take a step that in the opinion of 
them both would be fatal to his career ; and this with 
so little consciousness that there was anything heroic 
in the course which they were pursuing, that it appears 
never to have occurred to either of them that any other 
line of conduct could possibly be adopted." But Macau- 
lay's honesty was appreciated and he writes jubilantly : 
" Here I am safe and well at the end of one of the most 
stormy weeks that the oldest man remembers in Par- 
liamentary affairs. I have resigned my office and my 



LIFE OF MACAULAT XXlli 

resignation has been refused. I have spoken and voted 
against the Ministry under which I hold my place." 
And again he writes : " I have, therefore, the singular 
good luck of having saved both ray honor and my place." 
In 1834 he was chosen by the government to go to 
Calcutta as their representative in the Supreme Coun- 
cil. '-' To Lord Lansdowne, his friend and political 
patron, he told his reasons for accepting a position 
which seemed to all a sacrifice of his political ambi- 
tions. "Every day that I live, I become less and less 
desirous of great wealth. But every day makes me 
more sensible of the importance of a competence. 
Without a competence it is not easy for a public man 
to be honest; it is almost impossible for him to be 
thought so. I am so situated that I can subsist only 
in two ways : by being in office and by my pen. . . . The 
thought of becoming a book-seller's hack, of writing to 
relieve, not the fulness of the mind, but the emptiness 
of the pocket, ... is horrible to me. Yet thus it must 
be if I should quit office. Yet to hold office merely for the 
sake of emolument would be more horrible still. . . . 
But this is not all. I am not alone in the world. A fam- 
ily which I love most fondly is dependent on me. . . . 
An opportunity has offered itself. ... I may hope by 
the time I am thirty-nine or forty to return to England 
with a fortune of thirty thousand pounds. To me that 
would be affluence." On the first intimation of this 



XXIV INTRODUCTION 

offer he had written to his sister Hannah, telling her 
of the dignity and consideration attached to the post, 
and of the high salary, ten thousand pounds a year, 
and added : '' Whether the period of my exile shall be 
one of comfort, and after the first shock, even of happi- 
ness, depends on you. If, as I expect, this offer shall be 
made to me, will you go with me ? I know what a sacri- 
fice I ask of you. I know how many dear and precious 
ties you must, for a time, sunder. I know that the splen- 
dor of the Indian court, and the gayeties of that brill- 
iant society of which you would be one of the leading 
personages, have no temptation for you. I can bribe 
you only by telling you that, if you will go with me, I 
will love you better than I love you now, if I can." 

His preparations for the voyage to India were char- 
acteristic. He visited the ship to inspect the cabin 
his sister was to occupy, and ordered it to be made as 
pretty and comfortable as possible for the long voyage. 
He wrote to the publishers of the Edinburgh Review 
that he would continue to furnish articles to them, but 
he desired to be paid while in India with books. He 
gave his preference for books on English History, as 
he had already begun work on his own History at that 
time. 

Among the books which he had provided for his 
own reading on the voyage were Voltaire's works, 
Gibbon, Sismondi's History of the Frendi^ Don Quixote 



LIFE OF MAGAULAY XX v 

in Spanish, Homer in Greek, Horace in Latin, all the 
Edinburgh Reviews bound, a collection of Greek clas- 
sics, some books of jurisprudence, some to initiate him 
in Persian and Hindoostanee, and his favorite novels. 
He warned his sister that he had brought Gisborne's 
Duties of Women, Moore's Fables for the Female Sex, 
Mrs. K.'s Female Scripture Characters and Fordyce's 
Sermons to keep her in order, — and then asked her to 
tell him seriously what she would like to have. On 
the voyage his letters tell that his sister danced with 
the gentlemen in the evenings and read novels and 
sermons with the ladies in the mornings ; but that he 
hardly spoke except at meals, keenly enjoying the 
chance to be alone and, as he puts it, to " devour Greek, 
Latin, Spanish, Italian, French, and English, — folios, 
quartos, octavos, and duodecimos." 

When the vessel touched at Madras Macaulay found 
instructions awaiting him from Lord Bentinck, the 
Governor-General of India, which required his leaving 
the coast and travelling by palanquin to the Nilgiris 
Hills, beyond Mysore. He was thus thrown at once 
in contact with the natives. At Arcot he visited the 
deserted gardens of the Nabob of the Carnatic ; and 
at Mysore he was received by the deposed Eajah, 
whose palaces, furniture, jewels, soldiers, elephants, 
and idols were subjects for home letters. He digressed 
from the main road to visit the old town and fortress 



Xxvi INTRODUCTION 

of Seringapatam, a place having a double interest for 
hira. He had been familiar with it from a child, 
through the stories told him by the hero uncle, Gen- 
eral Macaulay, who had been imprisoned there for 
four years ; and he was now interested in exploring 
the ruins of the splendid court and halls, and in see- 
ing the great mausoleum within which are the tombs 
of Hyder Ali, Tippoo Sultan, and Tippoo's mother, all 
covered with palls embroidered in gold with verses 
from the Koran. 

When he was relieved by Lord Bentinck he went on 
to Calcutta, and there he and sister Hannah went to 
housekeeping. Then began the unremitting grind of 
government administration which employed him dur- 
ing the entire time that he remained in India. He was 
made president of the Committee on Public Instruc- 
tion for India, and we find him advocating teaching 
English in the schools, instead of Sanscrit, Persian, 
and Arabic, on the grounds of the value of English as 
a language, of the knowledge of the sciences that 
would come through it, and of its known civilizing 
effects. In this, as in other positions, he acquainted 
himself with the minutest details of the office for 
which he was responsible. He gave opinions on cir- 
culating libraries, qualifications of schoolmasters, the 
manner of awarding prizes, and on "public spouting 
in schools " j and made suitable lists of books for study 



LIFE OF MACAULAY XXVll 

and lists of books to be used for prizes. He was also 
made chairman of tlie Committee to draw up a Penal 
Code and Code of Criminal Procedure for India. 
Owing to the sickness of some of his colleagues most 
of the labor on the Penal Code fell to him. Of this 
remarkable code Mr. Fitzjames Stephens, a trained 
English lawyer and Macaulay's successor, says : ^' This 
Penal Code is to the English criminal law what a 
manufactured article ready for use is to the materials 
out of which it was made. It is to the French Code 
Penal, and, I may add, to the North German Code of 
1871, what a finished picture is to a sketch. The 
clearest proof of its practical success is that hardly 
any questions have arisen upon it which have had to 
be determined by the courts." The value of its plain 
instructions is most appreciated by those English 
magistrates who have been called upon to administer 
justice in a country where there is no common inter- 
pretation of the terms, crime and punishment. 

At one time Macaulay was very unpopular in India. 
He had advocated an act which required that hence- 
forth British subjects should bring civil appeals before 
the Sudder Court, instead of the Supreme Court of 
Council. His habitual fairness appears in this state- 
ment : " In my opinion the chief reason for preferring 
the Sudder Court is this, that it is the court which we 
have provided to administer justice, in the last resort, 



XXVIU INTRODUCTION 

to the great body of the people. ... If we give our 
own countrymen an appeal to the King's Courts, in 
cases in which all others are forced to be contented 
with the Company's Courts, we do in fact cry down the 
Company's Courts. We proclaim to the Indian people 
that there are two sorts of justice — a coarse one, 
which we think good enough for them, and another of 
superior quality, which we keep for ourselves." This 
called down upon him such a storm of vituperation 
from the Calcutta press that he was unwilling his 
sister should see the papers. The abuse seems not to 
have disturbed his equanimity in any other way, for 
during these attacks he sent off a long state paper 
setting forth his reasons for urging the removal of all 
censorship from the press of India. By 1837 his 
object in going to India had been attained, he had 
acquired a fortune sufficient to allow him to reenter 
political life or to retire and devote himself to writ- 
ing. In a letter to a friend, he confessed his yearn- 
ing for England. " Let me assure you," he wrote, 
"banishment is no light matter." He left India in 
December, 1837. On the voyage home he mastered 
the German language, learning it as he had Span- 
ish and Portuguese. His habit was to read first 
the Bible in the new language, his familiarity with 
the Bible making a dictionary unnecessary, then with 
dictionary and grammar to attack some classical work. 



LIFE OF MACAULAY xxix 

Shortly after his return to England he began writ- 
ing on his History of England ; but his election to Par- 
liament from Edinburgh, and the acceptance of a seat 
in the Cabinet, so interfered with this more exacting 
form of writing that he gave it up for a while, though 
he continued his contributions of book reviews, or 
essays, to the Edinburgh Review until 1844. His resi- 
dence in India had attracted him to Indian subjects. 
He wrote to the Edinburgh Bevieio that he would send 
them a life of Lord Clive. "The subject is a grand 
one, and admits of decorations and illustrations in- 
numerable.'' Later he wrote : " I see that a life of 
AVarren Hastings is just coming out. I mark it for 
mine." This refers to Gleig's Life of Warren Hastings 
that afterward furnished the materials, or rather the 
occasion, for the essay in this book on Warren Hast- 
ings. 

P'rom 1839 to 1847 Macaulay spoke on every im- 
portant question that came up in Parliament. In 
1847 he gave offence to his constituents of Edinburgh 
by some of his broad views, and he was not reelected. 
He refused the offer of an election from another 
borough, welcoming his defeat because it gave him 
the needed time to devote to his History of England. 
The first two volumes were published in 1848. Their 
sale was phenomenal. He said of the History, "It is 
a work that never ceases and never presses." As he 



XXX INTRODUCTION 

wrote the third and fourth volumes he became so 
absorbed that he gave up other writing except some 
articles for the Encyclopedia Britannica. The History 
had a more enthusiastic welcome than even he had 
hoped for it. Its sale in England outnumbered that 
of the popular novels. On the continent compliments 
and honors were showered upon him. From America 
Harper and Brothers wrote that the sixth edition was 
in the market, and no work of any kind had ever 
taken America so by storm. 

In 1852 Macaulay was again returned to Parliament 
by the electors of Edinburgh at their own expense. 
He demonstrated by one brilliant effort that he had 
not lost his power, for the bill he opposed was " not 
thrown out, but pitched out." The strain of political 
life, however, was too great for him, as his health was 
failing, and in 1856 he applied for the Chiltern 
Hundreds.^ 

Many honors were conferred on the great man in 
his last years. He was elected Lord Rector of the 

1 By English law no member of Parliament is at liberty to resign 
his seat, so long as he is duly qualified ; on the other hand a mem- 
ber who accepts an office under the crown must vacate his seat. A 
member desiring to resign, therefore, applies for the " Stewardship 
of the Chiltern Hundreds," an office formerly of importance, but 
now obsolete and merely nominal. The appointment necessitates his 
resignation as member of Parliament, and, having thus fulfilled its 
purpose, is again resigned, so as to be ready for the next men;ber 
who wishes to use it. 



LIFE OF MACAULAY XXXI 

University of Glasgow ; made a Eellow of tlie Eoyal 
Society ; elected a Foreign Member of the French 
Academy, and of the Prussian Order of Merit ; and 
High Stewart of Cambridge. He was raised to the 
peerage as Baron Macaulay of Eothley, the first liter- 
ary man to receive this honor in recognition of literary 
work. And yet his last days were sad ones. He once 
said, " There are not ten people in the world whose 
deaths would spoil my dinner, but there are one or 
two whose deaths would break my heart." This " one 
or two " came to mean his sisters Margaret and Han- 
nah. When Margaret died it did almost break his 
heart ; and the marriage of his sister Hannah while 
he and she were in India seemed almost as hard to 
bear. His sister Hannah and her husband. Lord Tre- 
velyan, were as devoted to him as he was to them, so 
they returned to England when he did and he lived 
with them or near them the remainder of his life. 
The year 1859 found him failing in bodily health very 
rapidly, although his friends did not know how ill 
he was. He continued to write on his History, but 
was sorrowfully conscious that he could not finish it. 
" To-day I wrote a pretty fair quantity of history. I 
should like to finish William before I go. But this is 
like the old excuses that were made to Charon." 

A blow had fallen on him this year that probably 
hastened his end. His sister Hannah's husband had 



xxxii tNTkODUCTtOM 

been appointed Governor of Madras, and had sailed 
for India ; there the beloved Hannah must soon fol- 
low him. Macaulay accepted this, the heaviest trial 
that could come to him, with a cheerful acquiescence ; 
but in his diary is the entry, " I could almost wish 
that what is to be were to be immediately. I dread, 
the next four months more even than the months 
which will follow the separation. This prolonged 
parting — this slow sipping of the vinegar and the 
gall — is terrible." 

As he grew weaker his anxiety lest he should grow 
irritable is expressed, and he adds, " But I will take 
care. I have thought several times of late that the 
last scene of the play is approaching. I should wish 
to act it simply, but with fortitude and gentleness 
united." 

His wish was realized. His friends found him sit- 
ting in his easy chair in the library Avith his book open 
before him. The end had come before the dreaded 
parting from his sister. 

He was buried in the Poets' Corner of Westminster 
Abbey on the 9th of January, 1860. 



INDIA xxxiii 



INDIA 



When the British began trading in India they found 
the native people divided into two great contending 
forces — the Hindus and the Mohammedans. These 
two forces may be accounted for, in general, in this 
way, taking Sir William Wilson Hunter, a vice-presi- 
dent of the Eoyal Asiatic Society, as authority : — 

The Hindus, made up of : — 

Non-Aryans — (the Aborigines). 

Aryans — (from Aryan plateau). 

Scythians — (Huns, Tartars). (From Western Asia. 
Possibly non-Aryans, though probably Aryans.) 

These three had formed a settled nation with a com- 
mon religion; and their pride of birth, learning, and 
prowess had crystallized into the four great Hindu 
castes before the year 1000 a.d. 

The Mohammedans. 

About 1000 A.D. various Tartar tribes of Arabia, 
who had embraced Mohammedanism, overran India, 
conquering parts of it and setting up the Mogul 
Empire. 

The Hindus : Non-Aeyans. — Although the non- 
Aryans are called the Aborigines, the weapons and 
utensils of agate, flint, and iron that are found indi- 
cate earlier people than these^ of whom there is no 



xxxiv INTRODUCTION 

written account. The only history we have of the 
non-Aryans is in the Vedas of their conquerors, the 
Aryans. They have no race name. The Vedic poets 
sang of them as "the flat-nosed, black-skinned raw- 
eaters," and again, " of fearful swiftness, unyielding 
in battle, in color like a dark blue cloud." Their idols 
were hideous creatures whom they feared ; they had no 
good deities. They are classed among the Hindus, but 
some of their tribes are scattered along the hills and 
mountains of India and retain distinctive tribe names. 
The Hillmen of Madras, the Bhils of the Vindya Hills, 
the Santals, and the Gurkhas of the Himalayas, are 
non-Aryans. These people are brave and loyal when 
fairly treated. The Gurkha regiments in the English 
army and the Bhil treasury-guards have justified the 
confidence placed in them. 

The Aryans. — From the Aryan plateau in West 
Asia, branches of one great family set forth in differ- 
ent directions. Some travelled west and became what 
we know as the Greek and Eoman nations, and from 
other branches that wandered on farther west we 
are descended through our Keltic and Teutonic fore- 
fathers. Still others went east and south. One en- 
tered the Punjab through the Himalayas and spread 
over India, conquering the non-Aryans or driving 
them to the mountains. Their earliest literature, the 
E,ig-Veda, dated variously from 3000 to 1400 b.c, and 



INDIA XXXV 

their other Yedas, sing of their marching eastward 
and " subjecting the black-skinned to the Aryan man/^ 
These hymns praise the gods of the Aryan, " the Shin- 
ing Ones," and condemn the hideous monsters of the 
Dasyus, or enemies. At first, like all conquering 
people, the Aryans confined themselves to war, and 
there seems to have been the same patriarchal form 
of government as in the Teutonic tribes. Gradually 
the people became divided into classes, through 
their occupations, and these classes are what are 
known to us as the castes of India, which are heredi- 
tary and whose bounds are impassable. For a time 
there seems to have been a struggle for supremacy 
between the soldier and student classes, which was 
won by the latter. The four great castes are the 
Brahman, Eajput, Yaisya, and Sudra : — 

Bralmians. — The men of learning of India formed 
the highest caste. From this caste came the poets, 
philosophers, teachers, lawgivers, and priests of the 
people, but never the king. They were the advisers 
of the kings because they were the men of greatest 
wisdom, but it was not prudent that king and coun- 
sellors should all come from the same class, so the 
king was always one of the Eajputs. They stood 
between the people and the great god Brahma, and 
so were called Brahmans. It was a part of their duty 
to memorize the Yedas and teach them to the youth- 



XXXVl INTRODUCTION 

ful men of their caste. They perfected the Sanscrit 
language and used it in writing. The common people 
used a dialect, Prakrit. This made another barrier 
between learning and the people. 

Rajputs. — The warrior caste is called the Eajput. 
It probably grew up out of the custom of rewarding 
the strongest and bravest soldiers with presents of 
lands and slaves. This is the royal stock. The name 
means prince, son of a rajah or king. 

Vaisyas. — The third caste in descending order, 
made up of the agriculturists, traders, and higher 
craftsmen, was called Vaisya, the old name for the 
whole people. 

These three classes were all of Aryan stock ; twice- 
born, they called themselves. 

Sudras. — The conquered non- Aryans composed the 
fourth or Sudra class. The Sudras were the slaves of 
the other castes. 

The Scythians. — About the time the Komans 
were making incursions into England, 100 b. c. to 500 
A. D., the Rajputs of India were trying to repel the 
Scythians, the first of the Tartar tribes to overrun 
India. These Tartars, or Huns, neither conquered 
nor were conquered ; they were absorbed, and eventu- 
ally accepted the religion. The Scythians were the 
last of the invading people that embraced the religions 
of India, Buddhism and Brahmanism. 



IKDIA xxxvii 

These three peoples, the Non-Aryans, the Aryans, 
and the Scythians, make np the people called Hindus. 

Buddhism ; Brahmanism ; Hinduism. — Out of the Brah- 
man religion rose, in the fifth century e.g., Buddhism. 
Eor a time it was a formidable rival of Brahmanism, 
but by 900 a.d. it was almost lost in India in the par- 
ent stream, though it is still the religion of millions of 
the people of Asia. 

Buddhism. — Gautama was the son of a king of a prov- 
ince north of Benares. His father wished him to be a 
warrior like himself, but while young he renounced the 
world, was taught by two Brahman hermits, gave him- 
self up to fasting and penance, and came out, after many 
temptations, purified, Buddha, — the Enlightened. 

He began near Benares preaching, not to the sacred 
caste alone, as was the custom of the Brahmans, but 
to the common people. He converted disciples and 
sent them forth to spread the religion. His creed did 
not admit the efficacy of sacrifices or the value of the 
mediation of the Brahmans between God and man. 
He taught that "misery or happiness in this life is 
the unavoidable result of our conduct in a past life; 
and our actions here will determine our happiness or 
misery in the life to come." Instead of Brahman 
sacrifices he urged three great duties : control over 
self, kindness to other men, and reverence for the life 
of all living things. Arnold's Light of Asia has made 



Xxxviii INTRODUCTION 

the world familiar with the beautiful part of this 
religion. The teachings of Buddha did much to unite 
the people and break down caste, for Buddha's disciples 
taught all classes. The Brahmans taught those of the 
Brahman caste only. But Buddhism in India was over- 
powered by Brahmanism, or Hinduism, before it had 
completed its work. 

Brahmanism. — Brahmanism took in Buddhism and 
other Indian beliefs, and became in time so modified 
that it now appears as the religious factor in Hin- 
duism. The words Brahmanism and Hinduism seem 
to be used interchangeably. 

Hinduism. — This is a fusion of the laws and cus- 
toms of all the Hindus, and of the religions of the 
Aborigines, the Brahmans, and the Buddhists. Every 
Hindu is soaked in Hinduism. It directs his social, 
his business, and his religious life. It governs social 
and business relations by acknowledging castes, not 
the original four alone, but all the classes and trade 
guilds that have grown out of these four. 

To the Oriental mind the Hindu religion is alluring, 
mystical, enthralling. To the Western mind it is more 
likely to appear merely perplexing and elusive. In 
order that we may understand some of the problems 
set for the early English rulers in India, Hinduism 
must be touched upon. A French traveller, Andre 
Chevrillon, who visited the cities of India and was 



INDIA xxxix 

impressed by the philosophy of Hinduism and the 
fact that it permeates all things in Benares and other 
Hindu cities, says of Hinduism: ^^'We must conceive, 
then, in the beginning and at the root of all things the 
absolute Being, pure and void, which is at the bottom 
of all forms and all germs. Developing itself out- 
ward it is subjected to Maya, illusion. . . . Illusion 
being recognized as such, what is more natural than 
a wish to escape from it ? And how succeed in doing 
this, unless by destroying in one's self all that makes 
part of this illusive and fugitive world; namely, desire, 
will, sensation? . . . For to immobility all Hindu 
philosophy practically leads. . . . That a man may 
enter into calm, he must hold his breath, fix his atten- 
tion, destroy his senses, cease from speaking. He 
presses his palate with the tip of his tongue, breathes 
slowly, looks fixedly at a point in space, and thought 
ceases, consciousness is abolished, the feeling of per- 
sonality vanishes. ^We shall cease to feel pleasure 
and pain, having attained immobility and solitude.' . . . 
^ As a spider rising by means of its own thread gains 
the open space, so he who meditates rises by means 
of the syllable Om, and gains independence.' " This 
syllable Om recalls to the Brahman the three persons 
of the Hindu trinity: Brahma, the creator; Vishnu, 
the preserver; Siva, the destroyer and reproducer. 

1 In India, Andre Chevrillon. 



xl INTRODUCTION 

" Thought and will being abolished, the whole phan- 
tasmagoria of Maya disappears: 'We become like a 
fire without smoke, or like a traveller, who, having left 
the carriage which brought him, watches the revolu- 
tion of its wheels.' ... ^ The man who sees a differ- 
ence between Brahma and the world goes from change 
to change, froin death to death.' That is to say, he will 
forever be reborn. ... ' He who, knowing the Vedas 
and having repeated them daily in a consecrated 
place, having made no creature suffer, concentrates his 
thoughts upon the Existence, and is absorbed therein, 
attains the world of Brahma and returns no more ; no, 
he returns no more.' . . . Such is the supreme felicity 
reserved for the adepts of the mysterious doctrine cele- 
brated by the Upanishads with a solemnity of language 
which gives an idea of the fervor, the enthusiasm, the 
restrained hope wherewith the Brahman is thrilled, as 
he looks forward to that day of deliverance after which 
he will never again say 3fe of himself." 

If the Hindu is striving daily to lose all sense of the 
Me, is it not possible for us to understand that he might 
submit with apathy to what would appear to us to be 
misfortune or disgrace, and even accept death with 
calmness and fortitude as did the Brahman Nuncomar, 
because he could hope to be absorbed into Brahma ? Yet 
he might revolt in desperation against a thing that to 
us seems trivial, such as the greased cartridges that pre- 



INDIA xli 

cipitated the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, because he feared 
the pollution which would compel him to be reborn. 

By the year 1000 a.d., the inhabitants of India were 
so imbued with Hinduism that though the different 
tribes were not at peace with each other, they were 
ready to unite and fight with a heroic determination 
against the invasion of people of another faith. By 
this time, too, the Rajputs, or soldier caste, had grown 
very strong and powerful, and the Yaisyas had made 
riches for the country. 

The Mohammedans. — Meanwhile in Arabia in the 
seventh century Mohammedanism had sprung up. 
This is the religion of the Moslems. Its adherents 
call it Al Islam. It rests on four pillars : (1) the 
Koran, (2) the traditions, (3) the consent of the 
learned doctors, (4) the reasoning of learned divines. 
It enjoins five great religious duties : (1) bearing wit- 
ness that there is no god but God, and Mohammed 
is his apostle, (2) reciting in daily prayer, (3) giv- 
ing the legal alms, (4) observing the monthly feast, 
(5) making a pilgrimage once in a lifetime to Mecca. 
The followers of this new religion set out to convert 
the world. One of the first expeditions was against 
India, but the Hindus repulsed them with such valor 
that they got no farther than the western part of the 
Sind, and their foothold there they soon lost. The 
Mohammedan Arabs had overrun !N"orthern Africa and 



xlii INTRODUCTION' 

conquered and settled in Spain before any incursions 
into India succeeded. 

The following table gives the chief Mohammedan 
dynasties of India. 

I. House of Ghizni. 1001-1180. (Turkish.) 

II. House of Ghor. (Afghan.) 

III. The Slave Kings. (Chiefly Turkish. ) 

IV. House of Khilji. 

V. House of Tughlak. 1320-1414. 

Irruption of the Moguls under Tamer (Tamerlane). 
VI, The Sayyids. 1414-1450. 

VII. TheLodis. 1450-1526. (Afghan.) Feeble reigns ; inde- 
pendent states multiply. 
VIII. House of Tamer, (Mogul.) 
1526-1530. Baber. 
1556-1605. Akbar the Great. 
1605. Jahangir. 
1628. Shah Jahan. 
1658-1707. Aurungzebe. 
1707-1712. Bahadur Shah, or Shah Alam I. 
1748-1754. Death of Mohammed Shah, and accession 

of Ahmed Shah, dejDOsed 1754. 
1754. Alamgir II. Six invasions of India by Ahmen 

Shah Durani, the Afghan. 
1759. Shah Alam II., titular Emperor. 
1806. Akbar, titular Emperor. 

1837-1857. Mohammed Bahadur Shah, titular Em- 
peror ; seventeenth and last Mogul Emperor ; gave 
his sanction to the Mutiny of 1857, and died a state 
prisoner at Rangoon in 1862. 



INDIA xliii 

The first successful Mohammedan invasion of India 
founded the house of Ghizni. It was brought on by 
the Hindus themselves. The Hindu chief of Lahore 
had been annoyed by raids from the Mohammedans 
of Ghizni. He marched his E-ajputs northwest to 
this town. They were repulsed ; their retreat was 
cut off, and they barely saved themselves by promis- 
ing great ransoms. When they got back to Lahore 
they repudiated their promises. Tradition tells that 
Jaipal was counselled by the Brahmans at his right 
hand not to disgrace himself by paying ransom to a 
barbarian, while his warriors on his left implored him 
to keep faith. The Mohammedans repaid this treachery 
by taking possession of Peshawar, which gave them con- 
trol of both ends of the Khaibar pass. Using this pass 
as their gateway the Mohammedans invaded India. 

The Mohammedan houses or dynasties, some Turks, 
some Slaves, and some Afghans, all Tartars that had 
become Mohammedans, fought in turn for control of 
Mohammedan- India. The Hindu kings were defeated 
and routed again and again, but not subdued. Occa- 
sionally the Gurkhas and the Hillmen assisted by 
pouring down upon the Mohammedans, massacring 
thousands of them. If the Rajput kings had kept 
their forces together, they might have continued to 
withstand the Mohamm^edan invaders, but they quar- 
relled, and thus the Hindus lost control. 



xliv INTRODUCTION 

It was during the Slave Dynasty that the Caliph of 
Bagdad acknowledged India as a separate Moham- 
medan kingdom, and coins were struck in recognition 
of the new empire of Delhi in 1229. 

Tughlaks. — The Tughlak dynasty was a time of 
oppression, and many of the Mohammedan provinces 
in the east and south revolted and set up independent 
kingdoms. 

Tamer (Tamerlane). — Tamer, the Lame, described 
as a Mongol (Mogul) because he revived the Tartar 
Empire and claimed to be the representative of the 
great Mongol Ghenzi, Khan of the Mongols and 
Tartars who had conquered Pekin and northern China, 
made a conquering raid across India. He left no 
traces of his power except "days of massacre." 

Petty Mohammedan Governors. — Under the weak 
dynasties of the Sayyids and the Lodis the petty king- 
doms increased. Five independent Mohammedan 
states were formed in the Deccan ; and the Lower 
Bengal district, the province of Gujarat in western 
India, Malwa, and the territory around Benares, each 
set up a separate Mohammedan government. 

The Mogul Dynasty. — In the middle of the sixteenth 
century, the Mongols returned, this time to stay. 
These Mongol Tartars had been converted to Moham- 
medanism. Their religion was the same as that of 
the invaders of the Afghan and Turkish dynasties; 



INDIA xlv 

they differed merely iu belonging to another Tartar 
branch and in coming in such numbers that they 
grew to be the great Moslem power of India. Baber, 
the first Great Mogul, was a descendant of Tamer, but 
he was a statesman as well as a warrior. 

Akhar the Great. — Akbar, grandson of Baber, was 
the real founder of the great Mogul Empire. His 
dates, 1556-1605, almost coincide with those of the 
great English sovereign. Queen Elizabeth, 1558-1603. 
He showed great wisdom. He made overtures to the 
brave Eajputs, marrying a member of this the royal 
stock of the Hindus. He chose many of his generals 
and statesmen from the Hindus. By conquering some 
and conciliating others he had succeeded before his 
death in reducing the independent Mohammedan 
states to provinces of the Delhi Empire, and in 
bringing the Hindu kings with their subjects into 
political dependence upon his authority. He found 
India a collection of petty Hindu and Mohammedan 
states ; he made it almost a united empire. The noble 
red stone fort at Agra remains to illustrate his idea of 
architecture. Tennyson in Akhar^s Dream treats of 
the deistic religion that Akbar believed in. 

Jaliangir. — His son Jahangir is renowned for hav- 
ing as his empress " The Light of the World," and he 
himself is immortalized in Lalla Rookh. Sir Thomas 
Roe, the first English envoy sent out by King James 



xlvi INTRODUCTION 

in 1616, bowed low before this " the Mightie Emper- 
our, the Great Mogul." 

Shah Jalian. — This grandson of Akbar, who was 
contemporary with Charles I. and Cromwell of Eng- 
land, sat upon the great Peacock throne, now in Tehe- 
ran, built the exquisite mausoleum Taj Mahal at Agra, 
and removed the seat of government from Agra to 
Delhi, where he built the Great Mosque. 

Aurungzebe. — The son of Shah Jahan, Aurungzebe, 
added to the extent, wealth, and power of his father's 
possession ; but it was in this reign that the decadence 
of the Mogul Empire began. Aurungzebe was a 
Mohammedan of the sternest type. He did not con- 
ciliate. He was determined to subdue the remaining 
independent Mohammedan powers. He succeeded, 
but he had only weakened Mohammedan forces that 
might have assisted him against the three great Hindu 
confederacies that had been forming — the Mahrattas, 
the Sikhs, and the natives of Rajputana. 

A digression from the main narrative of the Moguls 
seems called for in order to describe the great Hindu 
confederacies that were the chief agents in breaking 
the Moslem power. 

Rajputs ; Mahrattas ; Sikhs : Rajputana. — Au- 
rungzebe's son deserted him and united with the Raj- 
puts. Erom this time the district of Rajputana owned 
no allegiance to the Delhi government. 



INDIA xlvii 

Mahrattas. — Savajee, a Hindu of South. India, 
formed from the Hindus of the Deccan a national 
party called the Mahrattas from the district in which 
they lived. Mahratta means great country. As this 
army was recruited from the peasant proprietors of 
the land it could be quickly brought together and 
quickly disbanded, Savajee used his Mahrattas some- 
times against the invading Mogul army of Aurungzebe, 
sometimes against the two independent Mohammedan 
states that were trying to resist Aurungzebe. His 
army grew powerful, and he amassed such riches that 
before his death he weighed himself against gold and 
distributed the gold to his Brahmans. He assumed 
the title of E,ajah, king. He died in 1680. His suc- 
cessors were weak ; the office and the power of the 
Mahratta kings passed from them to their Pesh- 
was, or prime ministers. The Peshwas made Poona 
in Bombay the seat of government and centre of oper- 
ations for the Mahrattas. They captured some prov- 
inces and compelled the Mogul Emperor to cede others 
to them, so that when Clive went to India this great 
Hindu Confederacy possessed Malwa, Nagpur, Orissa, 
the Lower Bengal, and the west portion of the Nizam 
of Hyderabad's province. By Hastings' time the 
Mahrattas had quarrelled among themselves and were 
divided into five houses. The Peshwa, with his capi- 
tal at Poona, was still the nominal head. The other 



xlviii INTRODUCTION 

houses were the Bhonslas at Nagpur, the Sindhias at 
Gwalior, Holkar at Indore, and the Gaekwar at 
Baroda. 

First Mahratta War, 1779-1781. —The first of the 
three Mahratta wars with the British is the one re- 
ferred to in the Warren Hastings essay. It was brought 
on by a dispute between rivals for the Peshwa title. 
The French sided with one of the claimants, so the 
English governor at Bombay made a treaty at Surat 
with the other claimant to support him in return for 
the cession of two provinces. Hastings disapproved 
of the treaty, but when war began he sent troops that 
conquered Gujarat and Gwalior. The war closed by 
a treaty. 

Last Mahratta War, 1817-1818. — The Mahratta 
dynasties, each on its own account, took up arms 
against the British again, and all were defeated. This 
broke the Mahratta power. The Gaekwar of Baroda 
still reigns, but his is a feudatory state only ; and he 
spends his summers in London. Such is the fall of the 
Indian prince. The adopted son of the last Peshwa 
of Poona was the Nana Sahib of the Mutiny of 1857 
fame, or infamy. 

The Sikhs. — The Sikhs, a religious and military 
sect of the Hindus, located in the western part of the 
Punjab, were so cruelly persecuted by the Moham- 
medans that they became fanatics. They revere the 



INDIA Xlix 

Brahmans, and forbid the slaughter of cows, but they 
have so few other things in common with the Hindus 
that they have their own national character. Every 
man is pledged to become a soldier, and it is said that 
every Sikh to this day wears a piece of steel as a sign 
thereof. Theirs was the last Hindu power to succumb 
to the English. There were two British-Sikh wars; 
but in 1849 the whole of the Punjab became a British 
province by conquest and cessions. The Punjab was 
laid out with roads and canals, and grew so prosperous 
that in the Mutiny of 1857 the Sikhs were loyal to the 
English, 

The Moguls after Aurungzebe. — The history of the 
Hindu forces responsible for the breaking up of the 
Mogul Empire has been carried through to the time 
when they were merged into the Indian Empire. The 
account of the line of the Moguls will now be resumed. 
As has been said, the dissolution of the great Mogul 
Empire began while Aurungzebe was on the throne. 
Internal enemies might have completed the downfall 
in time, but it was not left to them alone. Persians 
and Afghans made raids into northern and western In- 
dia, mutilating, burning, and killing as they went. The 
Moguls that followed Aurungzebe were weak and much 
harassed. In 1743 the Mogul ceded Malwa, and in 
1751 Orissa to the Mahrattas, and promised an impe- 
rial grant from Bengal to the same Hindu power. The 



1 INTRODUCTION 

Nizam, or Governor, of Deccan separated the Deccan 
from the Delhi Empire ; and the Vizier, or Prime 
Minister, of Oude set np a separate dynasty and took 
for himself the title of I^abob Vizier of Oude. 

In 1764 the Nabob Vizier of Oude and the Great 
Mogul, Shah Alam II., combined against the English. 
They were defeated at the battle of Baxar. The Mo- 
gul became a pensioner of the English, and from that 
time the Moguls were only titular. In exchange for 
her protection, the Mogul ceded Great Britain the 
provinces of Bengal, Orissa, and Bahar, and the fol- 
lowing year the northern Circars. The English allotted 
Corah and Allahabad to the Mogul, and he held his 
court at Allahabad. 

In 1771 Shah Alam determined to try to regain the 
throne at Delhi. The Mahrattas were the only strong 
power aside from the English, so he attached himself 
to them. They seated him at Delhi, but then imme- 
diately compelled him and his army to assist them in 
a marauding raid on the Rohillas. He became dis- 
gusted with the faithlessness of the Mahrattas and 
tried to withdraw from them, but they would not 
allow him to, and compelled him to be an instrument 
in their hands. One of his acts at this time was to 
cede Allahabad and Corah to the Mahrattas ; but the 
English took possession of them. The English debated 
their responsibility toward the unhappy Mogul in his 



INDIA li 

captivity, but decided it would not be politic to inter- 
fere. In the second war of the Mahrattas and English 
in 1803 Delhi was taken, and the poor, blind, old 
Emperor Shah Alam passed once more under English 
protection. 

The last of the Great Moguls, Mohammed Bahadur 
Shah, was living in Delhi on English bounty when 
the Great Mutiny of 1857 broke out. The mutineers 
proclaimed him the Great Emperor. When the Eng- 
lish recovered the city, he was captured and was 
imprisoned for life. The princes were shot. 



lii INTRODUCTION 

THE BEITISH IN INDIA 

In the fifteenth century the powers of Europe were 
trying to find a new route to India. Columbus sailed 
west carrying a letter to the Khan of Tartary, and 
discovered America instead of the new route; but 
Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 
1498 and landed on the west coast of India. Thus 
Portugal was the first Christian country to get a foot- 
hold in India. The Portuguese established trading- 
posts at Surat and Goa on the west coast. They were 
followed by the Dutch, who established their posts on 
the islands along the east coast. Both nations had 
secured a good trade with India before the English 
ventures began. The Dutch traders were growing 
rich from the pepper and other products of India. 
This incited the English merchants, now that the way 
was open, to form a company to trade in the East 
Indies. 

An association was formed with 125 shareholders, 
merchants of London, and a capital stock of £70,000. 
This was the organization of the famous English East 
India Company, and it received the royal charter from 
Queen Elizabeth on the last day of the year 1600. 

For years there were sea fights for the right to trade 
with the islands and along the coast of India. In the 
first years of the seventeenth century the Portuguese 



THt: BRITISH m INDIA liii 

were driven from all the west coast, except Goa, and 
the English East India Company established factories. 
The Dutch drove the English from the islands on the 
east coast, but this resulted in English settlements on 
the peninsula itself. The early traders seem to have 
stood in awe of the Great Mogul, believing the native 
population to be one peojjle united under one emperor ; 
but when the English were driven from the Archipel- 
ago, they gradually procured licenses from the Great 
Mogul to establish factories on the mainland. In 1639 
the site of the present city of Madras was purchased 
by the East India Company from the Rajah of Chandri- 
giri, and Fort St. George was built. This was the 
first territory owned by the Company. The island of 
Bombay was ceded by Portugal to the British Crown, 
and in 1668 King Charles II. sold his rights over 
Bombay to the East India Company. The Company 
had more difficulty in getting a settlement in the prov- 
ince of Bengal. It was not until 1700 that they were 
able to purchase three Indian villages there, that were 
on the site of the present city of Calcutta. In this 
way the three great presidencies, Madras, Bombay, 
and Calcutta, had their beginnings. 

Until the end of the seventeenth century the English 
had thought of trading only. But uprisings of the 
Mahrattas against the Moguls taught the English that 
the Great Mogul was not the undisputed ruler of India. 



liv INTRODUCTION 

Petty wars with both Mahrattas and Moguls showed 
the English that they would be compelled to acquire ter- 
ritory in order to protect their trade. The three great 
centres had been established, Bombay, Madras, and 
Calcutta ; and the Company, about 1685, sent out Sir 
John Child with power to make war or peace and 
arrange for the safety of the Company. His title was 
Governor-General, a title that died with him and was 
not revived until it was given to Warren Hastings. 
The financial success of the East India Company was 
continuous. This caused rivalry and the formation of 
other English East India companies, but in every case 
the " interloper," whether a company or an individual, 
was taken into the original association, so that from 
1600 to 1858 the name English East India Company 
stands for one organization. During the seventeenth cen- 
tury the French organized a French East IndiaCompany 
similar to the Dutch and English companies. The 
French and English traded side by side without the 
rivalry that had existed between the English and the 
other European nations, until the war of the Austrian 
succession made the representatives of France and 
England in India fear each other. During the diffi- 
culties that arose at this time the French captured 
Madras, and although it was restored to the English 
by the terms of the treaty entered into by the home 
government at Aix-la-Chapelle, the French success 



THE BRITISH IN INDIA Iv 

influenced the native rulers later to side with the 
French and feel contempt for the English. The 
French were more diplomatic than the English and 
more affable to the native chiefs, and so had gained 
many favors from the Emperor at Delhi, the Great 
Mogul, such as being allowed to coin money for the 
provinces of the Carnatic. By the middle of the 
eighteenth century the French had a lucrative trade in 
India, with posts at Pondicherry in the Carnatic and 
Chandernagor near Calcutta. 

Dupleix in 1741 was made Governor of Pondicherry 
with supreme control over French India. Southern 
India, after the death of the Great Mogul Aurungzebe, 
had divided up into states that declared themselves 
independent of the Mogul. By supporting the claims 
of two native chiefs, one for the Carnatic and one for 
the Deccan, Dupleix became a political power. In 
self-defence the English espoused the cause of a rival 
chief for the Carnatic, Mohammed Ali, afterward 
known as the ^f Nabob of Arcot." It was at this time 
that Clive, a young man of twenty-four, without mili- 
tary training, came forward with a plan to recover 
lost ground for the English. He was listened to and 
allowed troops. The account of the struggle between 
the French and the English for the control of the Car- 
natic, and the success of the English ; and the further 
account of Clive's successes in Bengal, where he con- 



Ivi INTRODUCTION 

quered the army of Surajah Dowlah, revenged the 
tragedy of the Black Hole, fought the battle of Plas- 
sey, made Meer Jaffier Nabob of Bengal, and silenced 
the French and Dutch forever in the " Garden of 
India," — the account of all this is vividly given in 
Macaulay's Lord Clive. It was in the events following 
the battle of Plassey that Warren Hastings' active life 
began, and there begins Macaulay's account of him. 
As has been said, the object of the East India Company 
at first had been trade merely. The opposition of the 
Portuguese, Dutch, and French, and the unsettled con- 
dition of the native rulers, forced the first fights upon 
them to protect their property ; in time this seemed to 
demand that they should become the aggressors, and 
when Hastings went to India the battle of Plassey 
had settled the policy of England in India as one of 
conquest. 

The Warren Hastings essay continues the account of 
the British in India from Olive's time to 1785. The 
remainder of this article will describe briefly the 
events from 1785 to the time of settled government. 

After Hastings left India there was a revolt of the 
Sikhs, but the English conquered them and the Punjab 
was annexed as English territory. This with lesser 
victories seemed to give all India to the control of the 
English Company, and it had never seemed so strong 
nor so secure in its monopoly. In 1857 the native 



THE BRITISH IN INDIA Ivii 

element of the army, by being recruited to assist 
against the Mahrattas, Afghans, and Sikhs, had grown 
to about 350,000 men, while the European part num- 
bered only about 25,000. With these figures before 
us we can understand the great Sepoy Mutiny. The 
Rulers of India series gives a full account of the 
Mutiny, and Mrs. Steele in her novel On the Face of 
the Waters has made the capture of Delhi by the 
Sepoys, the siege of Lucknow, and the surrender 
and massacre at Cawnpore, seem horribly real. The 
Mutiny was put down, but it had brought home to 
English statesmen the need of formal acceptance of 
the responsibilities of government in India. In the 
spring of 1858 the Mutiny was broken ; in the fall of 
that year the East India Company's rule terminated, 
and the sovereignty of the Queen was declared. 

For two hundred and fifty-eight years the East India 
Company controlled and directed the political and mili- 
tary government of India. They went to India as 
traders ; to protect their interests they became con- 
querors and administrators. They made India a 
possession of Great Britain, and for years were in 
the curious position of a company of merchants vested 
with the control of a whole empire. It was not until 
1858 that England took the entire administration of 
the government of India into her own hands. 



Iviii INTRODUCTION 

A Summary of the chief Acts of Parliament relating 
to the East India Company 

1600. The original charter was granted by Queen 
Elizabeth. It gave to the Company the ex- 
clusive privilege of the India trade. 

1773. The Regulating Act was passed, whose chief 
provisions are given in the Warren Hastings 
essay. 

1784. Pitt's India Bill passed. This founded the 
Board of Control in England. This Board 
was authorized to superintend, direct, and 
control all acts, operations, and concerns 
relating to the civil and military government 
of India. It was empowered to send out 
troops to India at the expense of the Com- 
pany. The Directors of the Company were 
required to submit all papers to this Board 
except those relating to commercial matters. 
The phrase Governor-General-in-Council origi- 
nated at this time. 

1813. Parliament renewed the charter for twenty 
years, but abolished the Company's monopoly 
of Indian trade. The appointment of gov- 
ernor-general, governor, and commander-in- 
chief was no longer valid without the consent 
of the crown. 



THE BRITISH IN INDIA lix 

1833. The charter was renewed for another twenty 
years. It put an end to the Company's 
exclusive right to the China trade. Eeforms 
were introduced in the constitution for Ind- 
ian government. A new legal member, not 
necessarily a servant of the Company, was 
* added to the Board of Control. Macaulay 
was the first man sent to India in this 
capacity. A Law Commission was appointed. 
The Governor-General-in-Council was given 
control over all the Presidencies, in civil 
and military administration. 

1853. The charter was renewed for an indefinite time. 

1858. The Act for the Better Government of India 
passed. It transferred the administration 
from the Company to the crown. 



The Present Government of India 

In 1876 Queen Victoria assumed the title of Em- 
press of India. India is now divided into British and 
Feudatory India. British India is divided into twelve 
Provinces. Each has its own governor, but all are 
under the supreme control of the Governor-General- 
in-Council, who bears the title, also, of Viceroy of 
India. The Viceroy and the governors of Madras 



Ix INTROD UCTION 

and Bombay are appointed by the Queen. The gov- 
ernors of the other provinces are nominated by the 
Viceroy, from the Anglo-Indian service. Calcutta is 
the seat of government in the winter, and Simla in 
the Himalayas in the summer. There are Legislative 
Councils in the various provinces, and in 1893 the 
first general election to the Legislative Councils was 
held. 

Feudatory India consists of states governed by 
native princes, under the advice of a British Eesi- 
dent stationed at each court by the Viceroy. Some of 
these princes have more power than others, but all 
are limited by treaties in which they acknowledge the 
suzerainty of the British Government. The feudatory 
states are not allowed to make war on each other, or 
to make alliances with foreign powers. Questions 
of intervention of outside powers in India are now 
treated the same as encroachments on any other soil 
belonging to the Queen's Government. 



INDIAN TERMS Ixi 



INDIAN TEEMS 

The Indian Government has adopted a system of 
pronunciation for the words in common use. The 
vowels are sounded as in Latin. The accents marked 
on the words below are authorized. The best authori- 
ties differ in their spelling, so two or three are given. 
Macaulay's is put first, though usually it is not the 
most common. 

Great Mogul' ^ Mughal. Mogul, the name of the last Moham- 
medan Dynasty that ruled in India. Great Mogul, title of 
the emperor of the Moguls, who claimed to be emperor of 
all India. 

Na'bob, Nawah. Mohammedan title for the ruler of a prov- 
ince, equivalent to governor or viceroy. Nabob of Bengal. 

Vizier', Vazir, Vizir. Mohammedan title for a state minister, 
or prime minister. Nabob Vizier of Oude, governor and 
prime minister of Oude. 

Shah. Persian title equivalent to king. Padisha, king of 
kings, a title sometimes taken by the Great Mogul. Shah 
Alam, the last of the Great Moguls. 

Nizam. Hindu title equivalent to regulator, governor. Nizam 
of Hyderabad. It often carried the idea of regulator of 
political and judicial affairs. 

Be'gicm. Hindu title for princess. Munny Begum, mother 
princess. 

Diwan', Dewan. A head oflBcer of finance. 

Dow'lah. Mohammedan title equivalent to governor, ow as ou 
in out. Sura'jah Dowlah, one of the Nabobs of Bengal. 



Ixii INTRODUCTION 

Ba'jah, Baja. Hindu title for king. Rajah of Benares. 
Bajptit', Bajpoot. Name of Hindu caste from which the king 

was cliosen. It means son of a king, prince. 
Bajputa'na. Name of a district occupied by a strong tribe of 

the Rajputs. 
Fnnjah', Panjab. Name of a district occupied by the Hindus. 

The Sikhs were in the Punjab. 
Khan. Persian title for king or prince ; but like all these titles 

it often meant nothing more than an assumed distinction, 

as our esquire. 
Pesh'wa. A title meaning prime minister. Among the Mah- 

rattas the prime minister usurped the rights of the* king, 

so peshwa came to mean ruler. Peshwa of Poona, ruler 

of the Mahrattas, with his capital at Poona. 
Nuncomar', Savajee', Cheyt'e Sing (Ch^t Sing). 
AurungzeheJ (Awrungzab), Hy'der A'li. 
Dec'can. It means the south. A name given to the southern 

part of the peninsula of India. 
Oude^ Oudh. A province, ou as in out. e is silent. 
Hima'laya. Snow-abode, the word means. 



MACAULAY'S WORKS 

Essays Published in Knight's Quarterly Magazine. 

Fragments of a Roman Tale, 1823. 

On the Royal Society of Literature, 1823. 

Scenes from Athenian Revels, 1824. 

Criticisms on the Principal Italian Writers, No. 1 
Dante, No. 2 Petrarch, 1824. 

Some account of the Great Lawsuit between the Par- 
ishes of St. Denis and St. George in the Water, 1824. 



MAC AUL AY'S WORKS Ixiii 

A Conversation of Mr. Abraham Cowley and Mr. John 

Milton touching the Great Civil War, 1824. 
On the Athenian Orators, 1824. 
A Prophetic Account of a Grand National Epic, to be 

entitled " TheWellingtoniad," and to be published 

in 2824, 1824. 
On Mitford's History of Greece, 1824. 
Essays Published in Edinburgh Review. 
The West Indies, Jan., 1825. 
Milton, August, 1825. 
The London University, Jan. , 1826. 
Social and Industrial Capacities of Negroes, March, 

1827. 
Machiavelli, March, 1827. 
The Present Administration, June, 1827. 
John Dryden, Jan., 1828. 
History, May, 1828. 

Hallam's Constitutional History, Sept., 1828. 
Mill on Government, March, 1829. 
Westminster Reviewer's Defence of Mill, June, 1829. 
Utilitarian Theory of Government, Oct., 1829. 
Southey's Colloquies on Society, Jan., 1830. 
Mr. Robert Montgomery's Poems, April, 1830. 
Sadler's Law of Population, July, 1830. 
Southey's Edition of the Pilgrim's Progress, Dec, 1830. 
Sadler's Refutation Refuted, Jan., 1831. 
Civil Disabilities of the Jews, Jan., 1831. 
Moore's Life of Lord Byron, June, 1831. 
Croker's Edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson, Sept., 

1831. 
Lord Nugent's Memorial of Hampden, Dec, 1831. 
Burleigh and His Times, April, 1832. 



Ixiv INTRODUCTION 

Mirabeau, July, 1832. 

War of the Succession of Spain, Jan., 1833. 

Horace Walpole, Oct., 1833. 

William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, Jan., 1834. 

Sir James Mackintosh, July, 1835. 

Lord Bacon, July, 1837. 

Sir William Temple, Oct., 1838. 

Gladstone on Church and State, April, 1839. 

Lord Clive, Jan., 1840. 

Von Ranke's History of the Popes, Oct., 1840. 

Leigh Hunt, Jan., 1841, 

Lord Holland, July, 1841. 

Warren Hastings, Oct., 1841. 

Frederic the Great, April, 1842. 

Madame D'Arblay, Jan., 1843. 

Life and Writings of Addison, July, 1843. 

Bar^re, April, 1844. 

The Earl of Chatham, Oct., 1844. 
Articles in Encyclopedia. Britannica. 

Francis Atterbury, Dec, 1853. 

John Bunyan, May, 1854. 

Oliver Goldsmith, Jan., 1856. 

Samuel Johnson, Dec. 1856. 

William Pitt, Jan., 1859. 
Speeches. 

Parliamentary Reform, March, 1831 ; July, 1831 ; Sept., 
1831 ; Oct., 1831 ; Dec. 1831. 

Anatomy Bill, Feb., 1832. 

Parliamentary Reform, Feb., 1832. 

Repeal of the Union with Ireland, Feb., 1833. 

Jewish Disabilities, April, 1833. 

Government of India, July, 1833. 



MACAULAY'S WORKS Ixv 

Edinburgh Election, May, 1839. 

ConMence in the Ministry of Lord Melbourne, Jan., 1840. 

War with China, April, 1840. 

Copyright, Feb., 1841. 

Copyright, April, 1842. 

The People's Charter, May, 1842. 

The Gates of Somnauth, March, 1842. 

The Treaty of Washington, March, 1843. 

The State of Ireland, Feb. 1844. 

Dissenters' Chapels Bill, June, 1844. 

Post Office Espionage, July, 1844. 

Opening Letters in the Post Office, July, 1844. 

The Sugar Duties, Feb., 1845. 

Maynooth, April, 1845. 

The Church of Ireland, April, 1845. 

Theological Tests of the Scotch Universities, July, 1845. 

Corn Laws, Dec. , 1845. 

The Ten Hour Bill, May, 1846. 

The Literature of Britain, Nov., 1846. 

Education, April, 1847. 

Inaugural Speech at Glasgow College, March, 1849. 

Re-election to Parliament, Nov., 1852. 

Exclusion of Judges from the House of Commons, June, 1853. 

Introductory- Report upon the Indian Penal Code, Oct., 

1837. 
Notes on the Penal Code (140 pages of close print). 
History. 

The History of England — 

From the Accession of James the Second. 6 vols. 
Poetry. 

Pompeii. This poem obtained the Chancellor's medal at 

Cambridge University in 1819. 



Ixvi tNTROLUCTION' 

Evening. This poem obtained the Chancellor's medal in 1821. 
Lays of Ancient Rome. 

Horatius. 

The Battle of Lake Regillus. 

Virginia. 

The Prophecy of Capys. 
Epitaph on Henry Martyn. 
Lines to the Memory of Pitt. 
A Radical War Song. 
Ivry. 

The Battle of Moncontour. 
Songs of the Civil War. 
Sermon in a Churchyard. 
Translations from A. V. Arnault. 
Dies Irae. 

The Marriage of Tirzah and Ahirad. 
The Country Gentleman's Trip to Cambridge. 
Song. 

The Deliverance of Vienna. 
The Armada. 

Inscription on the Statue of Lord Bentinck. 
Epitaph on Sir Benjamin Heath Malkin. 
The Last Buccaneer. 
Epitaph on a Jacobite. 
Epitaph on Lord Metcalfe. 
Translations from Plautus. 
Valentine. 
Paraphrase of a Passage in the Chronicle of the Monk of 

St. Gall. 
Lines Written on the Night of the 30th of July, 1847. 
Rosamond. 
Battle of Naseby. 



CONTEMPORANEOUS HISTORY Ixvii 

CONTEMPOEANEOUS HISTORY 

WAKREN HASTINGS IN INDIA, 1750-1785 

George II., 1727-1760 

Frederick the Great, Emperor of Germany, 1740-1788. 

Clive takes Arcot, 1751. 

Seven Years' War with France, 1756. 

French and Indian War in America, 1755-1760. 

"The Black Hole " of Calcutta, 1756. 

Clive wins battle of Plassey, 1757. 

Victory of Quebec (England gains Canada), 1759. 

Georoe III., 1760-1820 

Catherine II., Russia, 1762. 

Stamp Act, 1765 (repealed 1766). 

Letters of "Junius," 1769. 

Conquest of Corsica, 1769. 

Napoleon and Wellington born, 1769. 

Debates in Parliament regularly reported, 1771. 

Pressing to death abolished, 1772, 

" The Boston Tea Party," 1773. 

The American Revolution begins, 1775. 

Free trade granted to Ireland, 1776. 

Lord George Gordon riots, 1780. 

Defeat of Cornwallis at Yorktown, 1781. 

Treaties of Paris and Versailles, 1783. 



Ixviii INTRODVCTIOy 

MACAULAY, 1800-1859 

English Men of Letters 

Sir Walter Scott. 

Lady of the Lake. 

Lay of the Last Minstrel. 

Ivanhoe, Waverley. 
John Wilson (Christoplier North). 

Nodes Ambrosianoe. 
Hannah More. 

Search after Happiness. 

Practical Piety. 
Trances Burney (Madame d'Arblay). 

Eveli7ia. 
George Gordon (Lord Byron). 

Childe Harold. 

Prisoner of Chilian. 
Thomas Moore. 

Lalla Bookh. 
Percy Bysshe Shelley. 

The Cloud. 

To the /Skylark. 

To the Nightingale. 
John Keats. 

Eve of St. Agnes. 
William Wordsworth. 

The Excursion. 

Ode to Immortality. 
Samuel T. Coleridge. 

Ancient Mariner. 

Lectures on Shakespeare. 



CONTEMPORANEOUS HISTORY Ixix 

Richard Brinsley Sheridan. 

The Bivals. 

The School for Scandal. 
Henry Hallam. 

Constitutional History of England. 
Thomas Arnold (Master at Rugby). 
Thomas Carlyle. 

The French Bevolution. 

Sartor Besartus. 

Frederick the Great. 

On the Choice of Books. 
Harriet Martineau. 

History of England, 1816-1846. 
William Ewart Gladstone. 

Studies in Homer. 
James A. Froude. 

Short Studies on Great Subjects. 
James Mill. 

History of British India. 
John Stuart Mill. 

System of Logic. 
John Ruskin. 

Lessons on Architecture and Painting. 

Sesame and Lilies. 
Herbert Spencer. 

First Principles, Biology. 
Sir John Herschel. 

Outlines of Astronomy. 
Charles Darwin. 

Origin of Species. 
Francis Jeffrey, Reviewer. 

Edited the Edinburgh Beview, 1802-1809. 



Ixx INTRODUCTION 

Charles Lamb. 

Essays of Elia. 
Thomas De Quincey. 

Flight of a Tartar Tribe. 

Confessions of an English Opium Eater, 
Matthew Arnold. 

Critical and Political Essays. 

Tristram and Iseult. 
Jane Austen. 

Sense and Sensibility. 

Pride and Prejudice. 
William M. Thackeray. 

The Newcomes. 

Henry Esmond. 
Charles Dickens. 

Pickimck Papers. 

David Copperjield. 
George Eliot. 

Silas Marner. 

Mill on the Floss. 

Middlemarch. 

Bomola. 
Elizabeth B. Browning. 

A Vision of Poets. 

A 3Iusical Instrument. 
Alfred Tennyson. 

Idijls of the King. 

In 3Iemoriam. 
Robert Browning. 

Saul. 

Bing and the Book, 



CONTEMPORANEOUS HISTORY Ixxi 



American Men op Letters 

Daniel Webster, Statesman and Orator. 

Bunker Hill Oratio7is. 

Beply to Hayne. 
Henry Clay, Statesman and Orator. 
John Calhoun, Statesman and Orator. 

Life of Washington. 

Life of Goldsmith. 
Washington Irving. 

Sketch Book. 

Bracebridge Hall. 

The Alhamhra. 
James Fenimore Cooper. 

Bed Bover. 

The Pilot. 

Last of the Mohicans. 

The Spy. 
John James Audubon, Naturalist. 
William Cullen Bryant. 

Little People of the Snow. 

Bobert of Lincoln. 

To a Waterfowl. 
Francis Scott Key. 

The Star Spangled Banner. 
John Howard Payne. 

Home, Sweet Home. 
Edgar Allan Poe. 

The Baven. 

The Gold Bug. 

Murders in the Bue Morgue- 



Ixxii INTRODUCTION 

Ralph Waldo Emerson, " The Sage of Concord." 

Bepresentative Men. 

American Scholar, 

The Snow Storm. 

Wood Notes. 
Louis Agassiz, Naturalist. 
Henry D. Thoreau. 

A Week on the Concord and Merrimac Bivers. 

Walden^ or Life in the Woods. 
William Lloyd Garrison, Abolitionist. 
William Hickling Prescott. 

Ferdinand and Isabella. 

Conquest of 31exico. 
Horace Greeley, Editor of New York Tribune. 

Becollections of a Busy Life. 
John Lothrop Motley. 

Bise of the Dutch Bepublic. 

History of the United Netherlands. 
Bayard Taylor, Traveller. 

Land of the Saracens. 

Views Afoot. 
Oliver Wendell Holmes. 

Autocrat of the Breakfast Table. 

The Last Leaf 

The Chambered Nautilus. 

Over the Tea-cups. 
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 

Evangeline. 

Song of Hiawatha. 

Translation of Banters Divina Commedia. 
John Greenleaf Whittier. 

Snoio Bound. 



CONTEMPORANEOUS HISTORY Ixxiii 

Tent on the Beach. 

My Soul and I. 
Mrs. Julia Ward Howe. 

Battle Hymn of the Bepublic. 
James Russell Lowell. 

Among My Books. 

Vision of Sir Launfal. 

Commemoration Ode. 

Fable for Critics. 
Nathaniel Hawthorne. 

House of Seven Gables. 

Marble Faun. 
Abraham Lincoln, Statesman. 

Men of Note of other Countries 

Goethe, German author. , 

Beethoven, German composer. 

Paganini, Italian violinist. 

Napoleon, military genius, Emperor of France. 

Guizot, French historian. 

Kant, German metaphysician. 

Hegel, German philosopher. 

Froebel, German educator. 

Schopenhauer, German philosopher. 

Moltke, Prussian general. 

Hans Christian Andersen, Danish author. 

Victor Hugo, French novelist. 



Ixxiv INTRODUCTION 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 
BOOKS ON MACAULAY 

The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, 2 vols. G. Otto 

Trevelyan. 
Macaiday. English 3Ie7i of Letters Series. J. Cotter Morison. 
Macaulay. Whipple^s Essays and Reviews^ Vol. 1. 
3Iacaulay. Matthew ArnoUVs Mixed Essays. 
Macaulay. 3Iinto''s Manual of English Prose Literature. 
Macaulay. Gladstone'' s Gleanings of Past Years. 
Macaiday. BagehoVs Estimate of Some Englishmen and 

Scotchmen. 
Macaulay. McCarthy'' s Short History of Our Own Times. 
Macaiday. Wilson''s Essays, Critical and Imaginative. 
Macaulay. Clark'' s Study of English Prose Writing. 

BOOKS ON INDIA 

A History of British Empire. Sir Wm, W. Hunter. A Vice- 
President of the Royal Asiatic Society. 
A Brief History of the Indian Peoples. Sir Wm. W. Hunter. 
The arrangement is on a system that makes the book 
a clear, succinct account. If only one book on India 
can be bought, I should advise the purchase of this one. 
Oxford, Clarendon Press. 
Epochs of Indian History Series. 

Ancient History (2000 b.c.-800 a.d.). Romesh Chunder 

Dutt, C. I. E. 
The Muhammadans. J. D. Bees, Madras Civil Service. 
The Mahrattas. K. T. Telang, Judge of the High Court, 
Bombay. 
History of British Empire, 10 Vols. Mill and Wilson. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY Ixxv 

Bise of the British Power in the East. Hon. Montstuart Elphin- 
stone. A full history to the battle of Panipat, 1765. 

The Story of the Empire Series. 

The Bise of the Empire. Sir Walter Besant. 
The Story of India. Demetrius C. Boulger. 

How the British won India. W. Plimblett. This book is in 
popular reading style. 

In India. Andr^ Chevrillon. (Henry Holt and Co.) A fas- 
cinating book of travels in India. 

History of the Indian Mutiny. T. Rice Holmes. (Good maps.) 

On the Face of the Waters. Mrs. Flora Annie Steele. A novel 
that tells the story of the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. Mrs. 
Steele was a teacher in the Punjab for twenty years. 

Sacred Books of the East. Max Mtiller. 

Buddhism. Professor Rhys Davids. 

History of the Mughal Emperors of Hindustan. Stanley Lane- 
Poole. 

Out of India. Rudyard Kipling. 

From Sea to Sea. Rudyard Kipling. 

Soldiers Three. Rudyard Kipling. 

Hastings and the Bohilla War. Sir John Strachey. 

Story of Nuncomar and Impeachment of Sir Elijah Impey. 
Sir James Fitzjames Stephen. 

Bulers of India Series. (Clarendon Press.) 
Lord Clive. 
Dupleix. 

Warren Hastings. 
Sir John (Lord) Lawrence. 

India Bevisited. Sir Edwin Arnold. 

Forty-one Years in India. Frederick Sleigh Roberts. 

Nabob of Arcofs Debts. Edmund Burke's Works. 

Speech on Mr. Fox's East India Bill, Edmund Burke's Works. 



Ixxvi INTRODUCTION 

A SUGGESTED METHOD OF STUDY 

First, read rapidly the India and the British in 
India in the Introduction and glance at the map when 
names of places occur. Second, read the essay through 
as one would a story, simply for the story; afterward, 
it may be studied as a biography and an essay. 

Macaulay has allowed the periods of Hastings' life 
to govern the divisions of the essay. These parts are 
readily seen on a second reading ; and form the main 
sections into which the outline falls. Take up the 
first paragraphs and examine them to see whether 
they belong under the first division or go to form an 
introduction to the whole essay. As the introduction 
and the conclusion are considered the most difficult 
parts of writing to the young essayist it may be well 
to notice how simply and naturally Macaulay begins 
and ends his essays. 

After the introduction is examined, each part may 
be taken up as a unit. Find what the author pro- 
posed to tell in each division and discuss his method 
of telling it by settling definitely the function of each 
paragraph in carrying on the story. 

While studying the purpose of the author, his 
style of expression may be studied also ; but the 
more natural and interesting method seems to be to 
study the whole essay, division by division, to get 



A SUGGESTED METHOD OF STUDY Ixxvli 

at the author's mind, then to return for comment 
on the devices he used in presenting his subject. 
It is impossible to read the essay twice without 
noticing his wealth of words and his exact use of 
them; and without recognizing the value of his fig- 
ures, allusions, balanced structures, climaxes, repeti- 
tions, and the many other arts used to make his 
meaning clear and his work inviting. So the passages 
best adapted to intensive study will be forechosen. 

Those who have written on Macaulay's style have 
given to us a variety of verdicts. Critics say of his 
style that it is pointed, epigrammatic, rapid, clear, 
harsh, vigorous, animated, simple, concrete, pictu- 
resque. They say he is fond of balanced structure, 
repetition, climax, the short sentence, enumeration 
of particulars, antithesis; that he has great erudition, 
splendor of imagery, the power of selection that seizes 
upon what is striking, the art of persuasion, taste, 
melody, harmony, pathos. They say of him, too, that 
he is a master of the mechanical art of putting words 
together ; that is, of clear sentence structure and logi- 
cal paragraph building. Trying to prove or disprove 
the justness of these various estimates is an interest- 
ing and profitable way to form one's own opinion. 



WARREN HASTINGS 

(1841) 

Memoirs of the Life of Warreti Hastings, First Governor-General 
of Bengal. Compiled from Original Papers, by the Rev. G. 
R. Gleig, M.A. 3 vols. 8vo. London : 1841. 

We are inclined to think that we shall best meet the 
wishes of our readers, if, instead of minutely examin- 
ing this book, we attempt to give, in a way necessarily 
hasty and imperfect, our own view of the life and char- 
acter of Mr. Hastings. Our feeling towards him is not 5 
exactly that of the House of Commons which impeached 
him in 1787 ; neither is it that of the House of Com- 
mons which "uncovered and stood up to receive him in 
1813. He had great qualities, and he rendered great 
services to the state. But to represent him as a man 10 
of stainless virtue is to make him ridiculous ; and- from 
a regard for his memory, if from no other feeling, his 
friends would have done well to lend no countenance 
to such adulation. We believe that, if he were now 
living, he would have sufficient judgment and sufficient 15 
greatness of mind to wish to be shown as he was. He 

B 1 



2 MAC AUL AY'S ESSAY 

must have known that there were dark spots on his 
fame. He might also have felt with pride that the 
splendor of his fame would bear many spots. He 
would have wished posterity to have a likeness of 
5 him, though an unfavorable likeness, rather than a 
daub at once insipid and unnatural, resembling neither 
him nor any body else. " Paint me as I am," said Oliver 
Cromwell, while sitting to young Lely. " If you leave 
out the scars and wrinkles, I will not pay you a shil- 

10 ling." Even in such a trifle, the great Protector showed 
both his good sense and his magnanimity. He did not 
wish all that was characteristic in his countenance to 
be lost, in the vain attempt to give him the regular 
features and smooth blooming cheeks of the curl-pated 

15 minions of James the First. He was content that his 
face should go forth marked with all the blemishes 
which had been put on it by time, by war, by sleepless 
nights, by anxiety, perhaps by remorse ; but with valor, 
policy, authority, and public care written in all its 

20 princely lines. If men truly great knew their own 
interest, it is thus that they would wish their minds 
to be portrayed. 

Warren Hastings sprang from an ancient and illus- 
trious race. It has been affirmed that his pedigree can 

25 be traced back to the great Danish sea-king, whose sails 



ON WARREN HASTINGS S 

were long the terror of both, coasts of the Bristol Chan- 
nel, and who, after many fierce and doubtful struggles, 
yielded at last to the valor and genius of Alfred. But 
the undoubted splendor of the line of Hastings needs 
no illustration from fable. One branch of that line 5 
wore, in the fourteenth century, the coronet of Pem- 
broke. From another branch sprang the renowned 
°Chamberlain, the faithful adherent of the White Eose, 
whose fate has furnished so striking a theme both to 
poets and to historians. His family received from the 10 
Tudors the earldom of Huntingdon, which, after long 
dispossession, was regained in our time by a series of 
events scarcely paralleled in romance. 
^ The lords of the manor of Daylesford, in Worcester- 
shire, claimed to be considered as the heads of this 15 
distinguished family. The main stock, indeed, pros- 
pered less than some of the younger shoots. But the 
Daylesford family, though not ennobled, was wealthy 
and highly considered, till, about two hundred years 
ago, it was overwhelmed by the great ruin of the 20 
civil war. °The Hastings of that time was a zealous 
cavalier. He raised money on his lands, sent his 
plate to the °mint at Oxford, joined the royal army, 
and, after spending half his property in the cause of 
King Charles, was glad to ransom himself by making 25 



4 . MAC AUL AY'S F.SSAY 

over most of the remaining half to speaker Lenthal. 
The old seat at Daylesf ord still remained in the family ; 
but it could no longer be kept up ; and in the following 
generation it was sold to a merchant of London. 
5 Before this transfer took place, the last Hastings of 
Daylesf ord had presented his second son to the rectory 
of the parish in which the ancient residence of the 
family stood. The °living was of little value; and 
the situation of the poor clergyman, after the sale 

lo of the estate, was deplorable. He was constantly 
engaged in lawsuits about his °tithes with the new 
lord of the manor, and was at length utterly ruined. 
His eldest son, Howard, a well-conducted young man, 
obtained a place in the Customs. The second son, 

15 Pynaston, an idle worthless boy, married before he 
was sixteen, lost his wife in two years, and died in the 
West Indies, leaving to the care of his unfortunate 
father a little orphan, destined to strange and memor- 
able vicissitudes of fortune. 

20 v^Warren, the son of Pynaston, was born on the sixth 
of December, 1732. His mother died a few days 
later, and he was left dependent on his distressed 
grandfather. The child was early sent to the village 
school, where he learned his letters on the same bench 

25 with the sons of the peasantry ; nor did any thing in 



0^ WARREN HASTINGS 5 

his garb or fare indicate that his life was to take a 
widely different course from that of the young rustics 
with whom he studied and played. But no cloud 
could overcast the dawn of so much genius and so 
much ambition. The very ploughmen observed, and 5 
long remembered, how kindly little Warren took to 
his book. The daily sight of the lands which his 
ancestors had possessed, and which had passed into 
the hands of strangers, filled his young brain with 
wild fancies and projects. He loved to hear stories 10 
of the wealth and greatness of his progenitors, of their 
splendid housekeeping, their loyalty, and their valor. 
On one bright summer day, the boy, then just seven 
years old, lay on the bank of the rivulet which flows 
through the old domain of his house to join the Isis. 15 
There, as threescore and ten years later he told the 
tale, rose in his mind a scheme which, through all the 
turns of his eventful career, was never abandoned. 
He would recover the estate which had belonged to 
his fathers. He would be Hastings of Daylesford. 20 
This purpose, formed in infancy and poverty, grew 
stronger as his intellect expanded and as his fortune 
rose. He pursued his plan with that calm but indom- 
itable force of will which was the most striking 
peculiarity of his character. When, under a tropical 25 



6 macaulay's i:ssAr 

sun, he ruled fifty millions of Asiatics, liis hopes, 
amidst all the cares of war, finance, and legislation, 
still ]ooiiited to Daylesford. And when his long 
public life, so singularly chequered with good and 

5 evil, with glory and obloquy, had at length closed for 
ever, it was to Daylesford that he retired to die. 

When he was eight years old, his uncle Howard 
determined to take charge of him, and to give him a 
liberal education. The boy went up to London, and 

lo was sent to a school at Newington, where he was well 
taught but ill fed. He always attributed the small- 
ness of his stature to the hard and scanty fare of this 
seminary. At ten he was removed to Westminster 
school, then flourishing under the care of Dr. Nichols. 

15 Vinny Bourne, as his pupils affectionately called him, 
was one of the masters. °Churchill, Colman, Lloyd, 
Cumberland, Cowper, were among the students. With 
Cowper Hastings formed a friendship which neither 
the lapse of time, nor a wide dissimilarity of opinions 

20 and pursuits, could wholly dissolve. It does not 
appear that they ever met after they had grown to 
manhood. But forty years later, when the voices of 
many great orators were crying for vengeance on the 
oppressor of India, the shy and secluded poet could 

25 image to himself Hastings the Governor-General only 



ON WARKEN HASTINGS 7 

as the Hastings Avith whom he had rowed on the 
Thames and played in the cloister, and refused to 
believe that so good-tempered a fellow could have 
done any thing very wrong. His own life had been 
spent in praying, musing, and rhyming among the 5 
water-lilies of the °Ouse. He had preserved in no 
common measure the innocence of childhood. His 
spirit ha,d indeed been severely tried, but not by 
^temptations which impelled him to any gross viola- 
tions of the rules of social morality. He had never 10 
been attacked by combinations of powerful and deadly 
enemies. He had never been compelled to make a 
choice between "innocence and greatness, between crime 
and ruin. Firmly as he held in theory the doctrine of 
human depravity, his habits were such that he was 15 
unable to conceive how far from the path of right even 
kind and noble natures may be hurried by the rage of 
conflict and the lust of dominion. 

Hastings had another associate at Westminster of 
whom we shall have occasion to make frequent men- 20 
tion, Elijah Impey. We know little about their school 
days. But, we think, we may safely venture to guess 
that, whenever Hastings wished to play any trick more 
than usually naughty, he hired Impey Avith a tart or a 
ball to act as fag in the worst part of the prank. 25 



a 



8 MACAULAY^S ESSAY 

Warren was distinguished among his comrades as 
an excellent swimmer, boatman, and scholar. At four- 
teen he was first in the examination for the °f oundation. 
His name in gilded letters on the walls of the dormi- 

5 tory still attests his victory over many older competi- 
tors. He stayed two years longer at the school, and 
was looking forward to a "studentship at Christ Church, 
when an event happened which changed the whole 
course of his life. Howard Hastings died, bequeath- 

10 ing his nephew to the care of a friend and distant 
relation, named Chiswick. This gentleman, though 
he did not absolutely refuse the charge, was desirous 
to rid himself of it as soon as possible. Dr. Nichols 
made strong remonstrances against the cruelty of inter- 

15 rupting the studies of a youth who seemed likely to 
be one of the first scholars of the age. He even 
offered to bear the expense of sending his favorite 
pupil to Oxford. But Mr. Chiswick was inflexible. 
He thought the years which had already been wasted 

20 on "hexameters and pentameters quite sufficient. He 
had it in his power to obtain for the lad a °writership 
in the service of the °East India Company. Whether 
the young adventurer, when once shipped off, made a 
fortune, or died of a liver complaint, he equally ceased 

25 to be a burden to any body. Warren was accordingly 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 9 

removed from Westminster school, and placed for a few 
months at a commercial academy, to study arithmetic 
and book-keeping. In January, 1750, a few days after 
he had completed his seventeenth year, he sailed for 
Bengal, and arrived at his destination in the October 5 
following. 

He was immediately placed at a desk in the Secretary's 
office at Calcutta, and labored there during two years. 
Fort William was then a purely commercial settlement. 
in the south of India the encroaching policy of °Dupleix 10 
had transformed the servants of the English company, 
against their will, into diplomatists and generals. °The 
war of the succession was raging in the Carnatic ; and 
the tide had been suddenly turned against the French 
by the genius of young Eobert Clive. But in Bengal 15 
the European settlers, at peace with the natives and 
with each, other, were wholly occupied with ledgers 
and bills of lading. 

ig After two years passed in keeping accounts at Cal- 
cutta, Hastings was sent up the country to Cossimbazar, 20 
a town which lies on the Hoogley, about a mile from 
Moorshedabad, and which then bore to Moorshedabad 
a relation, if we may compare small things with great, 
such as the city of London bears to Westminster. 
Moorshedabad was the abode of the °prince who, by 25 



lU MACAULAY'S ESSAY 

an authority ostensibly derived from the Mogul, but 
really independent, ruled the three great provinces of 
Bengal, Orissa, and Bahar. At Moorshedabad were the 
court, the harem, and the public offices. Cossimbazar 

5 was a port and a place of trade, renowned for the 
quantity and excellence of the silks which were sold 
in its marts, and constantly receiving and sending 
forth fleets of richly laden barges. At this important 
point, the Company had established a small factory 

10 subordinate to that of Fort William. Here, during 
several years, Hastings was employed in making bar- 
gains for stuffs with native brokers. While he was 
thus engaged, Surajah Dowlah succeeded to the gov- 
ernment, and declared war against the English. The 

15 defenceless settlement of Cossimbazar, lying close to 
the tyrant's capital, was instantly seized. Hastings was 
sent a prisoner to Moorshedabad, but, in consequence of 
the humane intervention of the servants of the Dutch 
Company, was treated with indulgence. Meanwhile the 

20 Nabob marched on Calcutta; the governor and the com- 
mandant fled; the town and citadel were taken, and most 
of the English prisoners perished in the °Black Hole. 

In these events originated the greatness of Warren 
Hastings. The fugitive governor and his companions 

25 had taken refuge on the dreary islet of Fulda, near 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 11 

the mouth of the Hoogley . They were naturally desirous 
to obtain full information respecting the proceedings 
of the Nabob ; and no person seemed so likely to fur- 
nish it as Hastings, who was a prisoner at large in the 
immediate neighborhood of the court. He thus became 5 
a diplomatic agent, and soon established a high charac- 
ter for ability and resolution. The "treason which at 
a later period was fatal to Surajah Dowlah was 
already in progress ; and Hastings was admitted to 
the deliberations of the conspirators. But the time 10 
for striking had not arrived. It was necessary to 
postpone the execution of the design ; and Hastings, 
who was now in extreme peril, fled to Fulda. 
-Soon after his arrival at Fulda, the expedition from 
Madras, commanded by Clive, appeared in the Hoog- 15 
ley. Warren, young, intrepid, and excited probably 
by the example of the Commander of the Forces, who, 
having like himself been a mercantile agent of the 
Company, had been turned by public calamities into 
a soldier, determined to serve in the ranks. During 20 
the early operations of the war he carried a musket. 
But the quick eye of Clive soon perceived that the 
head of the young volunteer would be more useful 
than his arm. When, after the battle of Plassey, Meer 
Jaffier was proclaimed Nabob of Bengal, Hastings was 25 



12 3fACAULAY'S ESSAY 

appointed to reside at the court of the new prince as 
agent for the Company. 

°He remained at Moorshedabad till the year 1761, 
when he became a member of Council, and was conse- 

5 quently forced to reside at Calcutta. This was during 
the interval between Clive's first and second adminis- 
tration, an interval which has left on the fame of the 
East India Company a stain, not wholly effaced by 
many years of just and humane government. °Mr. 

10 Yansittart, the Governor, was at the head of a new 
and anomalous empire. On the one side was a band 
of English functionaries, daring, intelligent, eager to 
be rich. On the other side was a great native popula- 
tion, helpless, timid, accustomed to crouch under 

15 oppression. To keep the stronger race from preying 
on the weaker, was an undertaking which tasked 
to the utmost the talents and energy of Clive. Yan- 
sittart, with fair intentions, was a feeble and inefficient 
ruler. The master caste, as was natural, broke loose 

20 from all restraint ; and then was seen what we believe 
to be the most frightful of all spectacles, the strength 
of civilization without its mercy. To all other despot- 
ism there is a check, imperfect indeed, and liable to 
gross abuse, but still sufficient to preserve society from 

25 the last extreme of misery. A time comes when the 



OM WARREN HASTINGS 13 

evils of submission are obviously greater than those 
of resistance, when fear itself begets a sort of courage, 
when a convulsive burst of popular rage and despair 
warns tyrants not to presume too far on the patience 
of mankind. But against misgovernment such as 5 
then afflicted Bengal it was impossible to struggle. 
The superior intelligence and energy of the dominant 
class made their power irresistible. A war of Ben- 
galees against Englishmen was like a war of sheep 
against wolves, of men against demons. The only 10 
protection which the conquered could find was in the 
moderation, the clemency, the enlarged policy of 
the conquerers. That protection, at a later period, they 
found. But at first English power came among them 
unaccompanied by English morality. There was an 15 
interval between the time at which they became our 
subjects, and the time at which we began to reflect 
that we were bound to discharge towards them the 
duties of rulers. During that interval the business of 
a servant of the Company was simply to wring out of 20 
the natives a hundred or two hundred thousand 
pounds as speedily as possible, that he might return 
home before his constitution had suffered from the heat, 
°to marry a peer's daughter, to buy °rotten boroughs 
in Cornwall, and to give balls in St. James's Square. 25 



14 MACA CLAY'S ESSAY 

Of the conduct of Hastings at this time little is 
known ; but the little that is known, and the cir- 
cumstance that little is known, must be considered 
as honorable to him. He could not protect the 
5 natives : all that he could do was to abstain from 
plundering and oppressing them ; and this he appears 
to have done. °It is certain that at this time he 
continued poor; and it is equally certain that by 
cruelty and dishonesty he might easily have become 

10 rich. It is certain that he was never charged with 
having borne a share in the worst abuses which then 
prevailed ; and it is almost equally certain that, if he 
had borne a share in those abuses, the able and bitter 
enemies who afterwards persecuted him would not 

15 have failed to discover and to proclaim his guilt. 
°The keen, severe, and even malevolent scrutiny 
to which his w^hole public life was subjected, a scru- 
tiny unparalleled, as we believe, in the history of 
mankind, is in one respect advantageous to his reputa- 

20 tion. It brought many lamentable blemishes to light ; 
but it entitles him to be considered pure from every 
blemish which has not been brought to light. 

^- - The truth is that the temptations to which so many 
English functionaries yielded in the time of Mr. Van- 

25 sittart were not temptations addressed to the ruling 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 15 

passions of Warren Hastings. He was not squeamish 
in pecuniary transactions ; but he was neither sordid 
nor rapacious. He was far too enlightened a man to 
look on a great empire merely as a buccaneer would 
look on a galleon. Had his heart been much worse 5 
than it was, his understanding would have preserved 
him from that extremity of baseness. He was an 
unscrupulous, perhaps an unprincipled, statesman; 
but still he was a statesman, and not a freebooter. 

°In 1764 Hastings returned to England. He had 10 
realized only a very moderate fortune ; and that mod- 
erate fortune was soon reduced to nothing, partly by 
his praiseworthy liberality, and partly by his misman- 
agement. Towards his relations he appears to have 
acted very generously. The greater part of his sav- 15 
ings he left in Bengal, hoping probably to obtain the 
high usury of India. But high usury and bad secur- 
ity generally go together; and Hastings lost both 
interest and principal. 

^ , He remained four years in England. Of his life at 20 
this time very little is known. But it has been 
asserted, and is highly probable, that liberal studies 
and the society of men of letters occupied a great part 
of his time. It is to be remembered to his honor that, 
in days when the languages of the East were regarded 25 



16 MACAULAY^S ESSAY 

by other servants of the Company merely as the 
means of communicating with weavers and money- 
changerSj his enlarged and accomplished mind sought 
in Asiatic learning for new forms of intellectual enjoy- 
5 ment, and for new views of government and society. 
Perhaps, like most persons who have paid much atten- 
tion to departments of knowledge which lie out of the 
common track, he was inclined to overrate the value 
of his favorite studies. He conceived that the culti- 

10 vation of Persian literature might with advantage be 
made a part of the liberal education of an English 
gentleman ; and he drew up a plan with that view. 
It is said that the University of Oxford, in which 
Oriental learning had never, since the revival of let- 

15 ters, been wholly neglected, was to be the seat of the 
institution which he contemplated. An endowment 
was expected from the munificence of the Company : 
and professors thoroughly competent to interpret 
°Hafiz and Ferdusi were to be engaged in the East. 

20 Hastings called on Johnson, with the hope, as it 
should seem, of interesting in this project a man who 
enjoyed the highest literary reputation, and who was 
particularly connected with Oxford. The interview 
appears to have left on Johnson's mind a most favor- 

25 able impression of the talents and attainments of his 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 17 

visitor. Long after, when Hastings was ruling the 
immense population of British India, the old philoso- 
pher wrote to him, and referred in the most courtly 
terms, though with great dignity, to their short but 
agreeable intercourse. 5 

Hastings soon began to look again towards India. 
He had little to attach him to England; and his 
pecuniary embarrassments were great. He solicited 
his old masters the Directors for employment. They 
acceded to his request, with high compliments both -to lo 
his abilities and to his integrity, and appointed him a 
Member of Council at Madras. It would be unjust 
not to mention that, though forced to borrow money 
for his outfit, he did not withdraw any portion of the 
sum which he had appropriated to the relief of his 15 
distressed relations. In the spring of 1769 he em- 
barked on board of the Duke of Grafton, and com- 
menced a voyage distinguished by incidents which 
might furnish matter for a novel. 
^'^^ Among the passengers in the Duke of Grafton was 20 
a German of the name of Imhoff. He called himself 
a Baron ; but he was in distressed circumstances, and 
was going out to Madras as a portrait-painter, in the 
hope of picking up some of the °pagodas which were 
then lightly got and as lightly spent by the English 25 



18 MAVAULAY^S ESSAY 

in India. The Baron was accompanied by his wife, a 
native, we have somewhere read, of Archangel. This 
young woman w^io, born under the Arctic circle, was 
destined to play the part of a Queen under the tropic 
5 of Can-cer, had an agreeable person, a cultivated mind, 
and manners in the highest degree engaging. She 
despised her husband heartily, and, as the story which 
we have to tell sufficiently proves, not without reason. 
She was interested by the conversation and flattered 

10 by the attentions of Hastings. The situation was 
indeed perilous. No place is so propitious to the for- 
mation either of close friendships or of deadly enmi- 
ties as an °Indiaman. There are very few people who 
do not find a voyage which lasts several months insup- 

15 portably dull. Any thing is welcome which may 
break that long monotony, a sail, a shark, an albatross, 
a man overboard. Most passengers find some resource 
in eating twice as many meals as on land. But the 
great devices for killing the time are quarrelling 

20 and flirting. The facilities for both these exciting 
pursuits are great. The inmates of the ship are 
thrown together far more than in any country-seat 
or boarding-house. None can escape from the rest 
except by imprisoning himself in a cell in which he 

25 can hardly turn. All food, all exercise, is taken in 



O^V WABREN HASTINGS 19 

company. Ceremony is to a great extent banislied. 
It is every clay in the power of a mischievous person 
to inflict innumerable annoyances. It is every day in 
the power of an amiable person to confer little ser- 
vices. It not seldom happens that serious distress 5 
and danger call forth, in "genuine beauty and deform- 
ity, heroic virtues and abject vices which, in the ordi- 
nary intercourse of good society, might remain during 
many years unknown even to intimate associates. 
Under such circumstances met Warren Hastings and 10 
the Baroness Imhoff, two persons whose accomplish- 
ments would have attracted notice in any court of 
Europe. The gentleman had no domestic ties. The 
lady was tied to a husband for whom she had no 
regard, and who had no regard for his own honor. 15 
An attachment sprang up, which was soon strength- 
ened by events such as could hardly have occurred on 
land. Hastings fell ill. The Baroness nursed him 
with womanly tenderness, gave him his medicines 
with her own hand, and even sat up in his cabin while 20 
he slept. Long before the Duke of Grafton reached 
Madras, Hastings was in love. But his love was of a 
most characteristic description. Like his hatred, like 
his ambition, like all his passions, it was strong, but 
not impetuous. It was calm, deep, earnest, patient 25 



20 MACAULAY^S i:SSAY 

of delay, unconquerable by time. Imhoff was called 
into council by his wife and his wife's lover. It was 
arranged that the Baroness should institute a suit for 
a divorce in the courts of Franconia, that the Baron 
5 should afford every facility. to the proceeding, and 
that, during the years which might elapse before the 
sentence should be pronounced, they should continue 
to live together. It was also agreed that Hastings 
should bestow some very substantial marks of grati- 

10 tude on the complaisant husband, and should, when 
the marriage was dissolved, make the lady his wife, 
and adopt the children whom she had already borne 
to Imhoff. 
'At Madras, Hastings found the trade of the Com- 

15 pany in a very disorganized state. His own tastes 
would have led him rather to political than to com- 
mercial pursuits : but he knew that the favor of his 
employers dex^ended chiefly on their dividends, and 
that their dividends depended chiefly on the invest- 

20 ment. He therefore, with great judgment, determined 
to apply his vigorous mind for a time to this depart- 
ment of business, which had been much neglected, 
since the servants of the Company had ceased to be 
clerks, and had become warriors and ne^gotiators. 

25 In a very few months he effected an important 



ON WARHEN HASTINGS 21 

reform. The Directors notified to him their high 
approbation, and were so much pleased with his con- 
duct that they determined to place him at the head of 
the government of Bengal. Early in 1772 he quitted 
Fort St. George for his new post. The Imhoffs, who 5 
were still man and wife, accompanied him, and lived 
at Calcutta on the same plan which they had already 
followed during more than two years. 

When Hastings took his seat at the head of the 
council board, Bengal was still governed according to 10 
the system which Clive had devised, a system which 
was, perhaps, skilfully contrived for the purpose of 
facilitating and concealing a great revolution, but 
which, when that revolution was complete and irrev- 
ocable, could produce nothing but inconvenience. 15 
°There were two governments, the real and the osten- 
sible. The supreme power belonged to the Company, 
and was in truth the most despotic power that can be 
conceived. The only restraint on the English masters 
of the country was that which their own justice and 20 
humanity imposed on them. There was no constitu- 
tional check on their will, and resistance to them was 
utterly hopeless. 

i^^ut, though thus absolute in reality, the English 
had not yet assumed the style of sovereignty. They 25 



22 MACAULAY'S ESSAY 

held tlieir territories as vassals of the °throiie of Delhi ; 
they raised their revenues as collectors appointed by 
the imperial commission : their public seal was in- 
scribed with the imperial titles ; and their mint struck 

5 only the imperial coin. 

There was still a nabob of Bengal, who stood to the 
English rulers of his country in the same relation in 
which °Augustulus stood to Odoacer, or the last °Mero- 
vingians to Charles Martel and Pepin. He lived at 

to Moorshedabad, surrounded by princely magnificence. 
He was approached with outward marks of reverence, 
and his name was used in public instruments. But 
in the government of the country he had less real 
share than the youngest writer or cadet in the Com- 

[5 pany's service. 

The English council which represented the Company 
at Calcutta was constituted on a very different plan 
from that which has since been adopted. At present 
the "Governor is, as to all executive measures, abso- 

!o lute. He can declare war, conclude peace, appoint 
public functionaries or remove them, in opposition to 
the unanimous sense of those who sit with him in 
council. They are, indeed, entitled to know all that 
is done, to discuss all that is done, to advise, to re- 

15 monstrate, to send protests to England. But it is Avith 



O.Y WAJRREN ItASTINGS 23 

tlie Governor that the supreme power resides, and on 
him that the whole responsibility rests. This system, 
which was introduced by Mr. Pitt and Mr. Dundas in 
spite of the strenuous opposition of Mr. Burke, we 
conceive to be on the whole the best that was ever 5 
devised for the government of a country where no 
materials can be found for a representative constitu- 
tion. In the time of Hastings the Governor had only 
one vote in council, and, in case of an equal division, 
a casting vote. It therefore happened not nnfre- 10 
quently that he was overruled on the gravest ques- 
tions ; and it was possible that he might be wholly 
excluded, for years together, from the real direction of 
public affairs. 

The English functionaries at Fort William had as 15 
yet paid little or no attention to the internal govern- 
ment of Bengal. The only branch of politics about 
which they much busied themselves was negotiation 
with the native princes. The police, the administra- 
tion of justice, the details of the collection of revenue, 20 
were almost entirely neglected. We may remark that 
the phraseology of the Company's servants still bears 
the traces of this state of things. To this day they 
always use the word "political" as synonymous with 
" diplomatic." We could name a gentleman still liv- 25 



24 MAC AUL AY'S ESSAY 

ing, who was described by the highest authority as an 
invaluable public servant, eminently fit to be at the 
head of the internal administration of a whole presi- 
dency, but unfortunately quite ignorant of all politi- 
5 cal business. 

The internal government of Bengal the English 
rulers delegated to a great native minister, who was 
stationed at Moorshedabad. All military affairs, and, 
with the exception of what j)ertains to mere ceremo- 

10 nial, all foreign affairs, were withdrawn from his con- 
trol ; but the other departments of the administration 
were entirely confided to him. His own stipend 
amounted to near a hundred thousand pounds ster- 
ling a year. The personal allowance of the nabob, 

15 amounting to more than three hundred thousand 
pounds a year, passed through the minister's hands, 
and was, to a great extent, at his disposal. The col- 
lection of the revenue, the administration of justice, 
the maintenance of order, were left to this high func- 

20 tionary ; and for the exercise of his immense power 
he was responsible to none but the British masters of 
the country. 

A situation so ^important, lucrative, and splendid, 
was naturally an object of ambition to the ablest and 

25 most powerful natives. Clive had found it difficult to 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 25 

decide between conflicting pretensions. Two candi- 
dates stood out prominently from the crowd, each of 
them the representative of a race and of a religion. 

One of these was Mahommed Eeza °Khan, a Mus- 
sulman of Persian extraction, able, active, religious 5 
after the fashion of his people, and highly esteemed 
by them. In England he might perhaps have been 
regarded as a corrupt and greedy politician. But, 
tried by the lower standard of Indian morality, he 
might be considered as a man of integrity and honor. 10 
p\ His competitor was a °Hindoo Brahmin whose name 
has, by a terrible and melancholy event, been insepa- 
rably associated with that of Warren Hastings, the 
"Maharajah Nuncomar. This man had played an im- 
portant part in all the revolutions which, since the time 15 
of Surajah Dowlah, had taken place in Bengal. To the 
consideration which in that country belongs to high 
and pure caste, he added the weight which is derived 
from wealth, talents, and experience. Of his moral 
character it is difficult to give a notion to those who 20 
are acquainted with human nature only as it appears 
in our island.// What the Italian is to the Englishman, 
what the Hindoo is to the Italian, what the Bengalee 
is to other Hindoos, that was ISTuncomar to other 
Bengalees. The physical organization of the Ben- 25 



26 MACAULAY'S ESSAY 

galee is feeble even to effeminacy. He lives in a 
constant vapor bath. His pursuits are sedentary, his 
limbs delicate, his movements languid. During many 
ages he has been trampled upon by men of bolder and 
5 more hardy breeds. Courage, independence, verac- 
ity, are qualities to which his constitution and his 
situation are equally unfavorable. His mind bears a 
singular analogy to his body. It is weak even to help- 
lessness for purposes of manly resistance ; but its sup- 

10 Idleness and its tact move the children of sterner 
climates to admiration not unmingled with contempt. 
All those arts which are the natural defence of the 
weak are more familiar to this subtle race than to 
the Ionian of the time of Juvenal, or to the Jew of the 

15 dark ages. What the horns are to the buffalo, what 
the paw is to the tiger, what the sting is to the bee, 
what beauty, according to the old Greek song, is to 
woman, deceit is to the Bengalee. Large promises, 
smooth excuses, elaborate tissues of circumstantial 

20 falsehood, chicanery, perjur}^, forgery, are the weap- 
ons, offensive and defensive, of the people of the 
Lower Ganges. All those millions do not furnish one 
°sepoy to the armies of the Comjjany. Bat as usurers, 
as money-cliangers, as sharp legal practitioners, no 

25 class of human beings can bear a comparison with 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 27 

them. AVitli all his softness, the Bengalee is by no 
means placable in his enmities or prone to pity. The 
pertinacity with which he adheres - to his purposes 
yields only to the immediate pressure of fear. IsTor 
does he lack a certain kind of courage which is often 5 
wanting to his masters. To inevitable evils he is some- 
times found to oppose a passive fortitude, such as the 
Stoics attributed to their ideal sage. A European 
warrior, who rushes on a battery of cannon with a 
loud hurrah, will sometimes shriek under the sur- 10 
geon's knife, and fall into an agony of des^^air at the 
sentence of death. But the Bengalee, who would see 
his country overrun, his house laid in ashes, his chil- 
dren murdered or dishonored, without having the 
spirit to strike one blow, has yet been known to 15 
endure torture with the firmness of "Mucins, and to 
mount the scaffold with the steady step and even 
pulse of "Algernon Sidney. // 

In Nuncomar, the national character was strongly 
and with exaggeration personified. The Company's 20 
servants had repeatedly detected him in the most 
criminal intrigues. On one occasion he brought a 
false charge against another Hindoo, and tried to sub- 
stantiate it by producing forged documents. On an- 
other occasion it was discovered that, while professing 25 



28 MACAULAY^S ESSAY 

the strongest attachment to the English, he was en- 
gaged in several conspiracies against them, and in 
particular that he was the medium of a correspon- 
dence between the court of Delhi and the French 
5 authorities in the Carnatic. Tor these and similar 
practices he had been long detained in confinement. 
But his talents and influence had not only procured 
his liberation, but had obtained for him a certain 
degree of consideration even among the British rulers 

10 of his country. 

Clive was extremely unwilling to place a Mussul- 
man at the head of the administration of Bengal. On 
the other hand, he could not bring himself to confer 
immense power on a man to whom every sort of vil- 

15 lany had repeatedly been brought home. Therefore, 
though the nabob, over whom Nuncomar had by in- 
trigue acquired great influence, begged that the artful 
Hindoo might be intrusted with the government, 
Clive, after some hesitation, decided honestly and 

20 wisely in favor of Mahommed Reza Khan. When 
Hastings became Governor, Mahommed Reza Khan 
had held power seven years. An infant son of Meer 
Jaffier was now nabob ; and the guardianship of the 
young prince's person had been confided to the 

25 minister. 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 29 

'^'^ Nuncomar, stimulated at once by cupidity and 
malicCj liad been constantly attempting to hurt the 
reputation of his successful rival. This was not diffi- 
cult. The revenues of Bengal, under the administra- 
tion established bj^ Clive, did not yield such a surplus 5 
as had been anticipated by the Company ; for, at that 
time, the most absurd notions were entertained in 
England respecting the wealth of India. Palaces of 
porphyry, hung with the richest brocade, heaps of 
pearls and diamonds, vaults from which pagodas and 10 
gold mohurs were measured out by the bushel, filled 
the imagination even 'of men of business. Nobody 
seemed to be aware of what nevertheless was most 
undoubtedly the truth, that India was a poorer coun- 
try than countries which in Europe are reckoned poor, 15 
than Ireland, for example, or than Portugal. It was 
confidently believed by Lords of the Treasury and 
members for the city that Bengal would not only 
defray its own charges, but would afford an increased 
dividend to the proprietors of India stock, and large 20 
relief to the English finances. These absurd expecta- 
tions were disappointed; and the "Directors, naturally 
enough, chose to attribute the disappointment rather 
to the mismanagement of Mahommed Reza Khan than 
to their own ignorance of the country intrusted to 25 



30 MACAULAY'S ESSAY 

their care. They were confirmed in their error by 
the agents of Nuncomar ; for IS^uncomar had agents 
even in °Leadenhall Street. Soon after Hastings 
reached Calcutta, he received a letter addressed by 
5 the Court of Directors, not to the council generally, 
but to himself in particular. He was directed to re- 
move Mahommed Reza Khan, to arrest him, together 
with all his family and all his partisans, and to insti- 
tute a strict inquiry into the whole administration of 

10 the province. It was added that the Governor would 
do well to avail himself of the assistance of Nun- 
comar in the investigation. The vices of Nuncomar 
were acknowledged. But even from his vices, it was 
said, much advantage might at such a conjuncture be 

15 derived; and, though he could not safely be trusted, 
it might still be proper to encourage him by hopes of 
reward. 

The Governor bore no good will to Nuncomar. 
Many years before, they had known each other at 

20 Moorshedabad ; and then a quarrel had arisen between 
them which all the authority of their superiors could 
hardly compose. Widely as they differed in most 
points, they resembled each other in this, that both 
were men of unforgiving natures. To Mahommed 

25 Keza Khan, on the other hand, Hastings had no feel- 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 31 

ings of hostility. Nevertheless he proceeded to 
execute the instructions of the Company with an 
alacrity which he never showed, except when instruc- 
tions were in perfect conformity with his own views. 
He had, wisely as we think, determined to get rid of 5 
the system of double government in Bengal. The 
orders of the Directors furnished him with the 
means of effecting his purpose, and dispensed him 
from the necessity of discussing the matter with his 
Council. He took his measures with his usual vigor 10 
and dexterity. At midnight, the palace of Mahoni- 
med Reza Khan at Moorshedabad was surrounded by 
a battalion of sepoys. The minister was roused from 
his slumbers and informed that he was a prisoner. 
With the Mussulman gravity, he bent his head and 15 
submitted himself to the will of God. He fell not 
alone. A chief named Schitab Roy had been intrusted 
with the government of Bahar. His valor and his 
attachment to the English had more than once been 
signally proved. On that memorable day on which 20 
the people of Patna saw from their walls the whole 
army of the Mogul scattered by the little band of 
Captain Knox, the voice of the British conquerors 
assigned the palm of gallantry to the brave Asiatic. 
" I never," said Knox, when he introduced Schitab 25 



32 MACAULAY'S ESSAY 

Eoy, covered with blood and dust, to the English func- 
tionaries assembled in the factory, " I never saw a 
native fight so before." Schitab Eoy was involved in 
the ruin of Mahomnied Reza Khan, was removed from 
5 office, and was placed under arrest. The members of 
the Council received no intimation of these measures 
till the prisoners were on their road to Calcutta. 

The inquiry into the conduct of the minister was 
postponed on different pretences. He was detained in 

10 an easy confinement during many months. In the 
mean time, the great revolution which Hastings had 
planned was carried into effect. The office of minister 
was abolished. The internal administration was trans- 
ferred to the servants of the Company. A system, 

15 a very imperfect system, it is true, of civil and crimi- 
nal justice, under English superintendence, was estab- 
lished. The nabob was no longer to have even an 
ostensible share in the government ; but he was still 
to receive a considerable annual allowance, and to be 

20 surrounded with the state of sovereignty. As he was 
an infant, it was necessary to provide guardians for 
his person and property. His person was intrusted 
to a lady of his father's harem, known by the name 
of the Munny Begum. The office of treasurer of the 

25 household was bestowed on a son of Nuncomar, named 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 33 

Goordas. Nuncomar's services were wanted ; yet lie 
could not safely be trusted with, power ; and Hastings 
thought it a masterstroke of policy to reward the able 
and unprincipled parent by promoting the inoffensive 
child. 5 

The revolution completed, the double government 
dissolved, the Company installed in the full sover- 
eignty of Bengal, Hastings had no motive to treat the 
late ministers with rigor. Their trial had been put 
off on various pleas till the new organization was lo 
complete. They were then brought before a com- 
mittee, over which the Governor presided. Schitab 
Eoy was speedily acquitted with honor. A formal 
apology was made to him for the restraint to which 
he had been subjected. All the Eastern marks of 15 
respect were bestowed on him. He was clothed in a 
robe of state, presented with jewels and with a richly 
harnessed elephant, and sent back to his government 
at Patna. But his health had suffered from confine- 
ment ; his high spirit had been cruelly wounded ; 20 
and soon after his liberation he died of a broken 
heart. 

The innocence of Mahommed Reza Khan was not 
so clearly established. But the Governor was not 
disposed to deal harshly. After a long hearing, in 25 



34 MACAULAY'S ESSAY 

which Niincomar appeared as the accuser, and dis- 
played both the art and the inveterate rancor which 
distinguished him, Hastings pronounced that the 
charges had not been made out, and ordered the fallen 

5 minister to be set at liberty. 

Nuncomar had purposed to destroy the Mussulman 
administration, and to rise on its ruin. Both his 
malevolence and his cupidity had been disappointed. 
Hastings had made him a tool, had used him for the 

10 purpose of accomplishing the transfer of the govern- 
ment from Moorshedabad to Calcutta, from native 
to European hands. The rival, the enemy, so long 
envied, so implacably persecuted, had been dismissed 
unhurt. The situation so long and ardently desired 

15 had been abolished. It was natural that the Gov- 
ernor should be from that time an object of the most 
intense hatred to the vindictive Brahmin. As yet, 
however, it was necessary to suppress such feelings. 
The time was coming when that long animosity was 

20 to end in a desperate and deadly struggle. 

In the mean time, Hastings was compelled to turn 
his attention to foreign affairs. The object of his 
diplomacy was at this time simply to get money. The 
finances of his government were in an embarrassed 

25 state; and this embarrassment he was determined to 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 35 

relieve by some means, fair or foul. The principle 
wliicli directed all his dealings with his neighbors is 
fully expressed by the old motto of one of the great 
predatory families of °Teviotdale, "Thou shalt want 
ere I want.". He seems to have laid it down, as a 5 
fundamental proposition which could not be disputed, 
that, when he had not as many lacs of rupees as the 
public service required, he was to take them from any 
body who had. One thing, indeed, is to be said in 
excuse for him. The pressure applied to him by his 10 
employers at home, was such as only the highest virtue 
could have withstood, such as left him no choice ex- 
cept to commit great wrongs, or to resign his high 
post, and with that post all his hopes of fortune and 
distinction. The Directors, it is true, never enjoined 15 
or applauded any crime. Far from it. Whoever 
examines their letters written at that time will find 
there many just and humane sentiments, many excel- 
lent precei)ts, .in short, an admirable code of political 
ethics. But every exhortation is modified or nullified 20 
by a demand for money. " Govern leniently, and send 
more money ; practise strict justice and moderation 
towards neighboring powers, and send more money ; " 
this is in truth the sum of almost all the instructions 
that Hastings ever received from home. Now these 25 



36 MACAULAY^S ESSAY 

instructions, being interpreted, mean simply, " Be the 
father and the oppressor of the people ; be just and 
unjust, moderate and rapacious." The Directors dealt 
with India, as the church, in the good old times, dealt 

5 with a heretic. They delivered the victim over to the 
executioners, Avith an earnest request that all possible 
tenderness might be shown. We by no means accuse 
or suspect those who framed these despatches of 
hypocrisy. It is probable that, writing fifteen thou- 

10 sand miles from the place where their orders were to 
be carried into effect, they never perceived the gross 
inconsistency of which they were guilty. But the 
inconsistency was at once manifest to their vicegerent 
at Calcutta, who, with an empty treasury, with an 

15 unpaid army, with his own salary often in arrear, with 
deficient crops, with government tenants daily running 
away, was called upon to remit home another half mil- 
lion without fail. Hastings saw that it was absolutely 
necessary for him to disregard either the moral dis- 

20 courses or the pecuniary requisitions of his employers. 
Being forced to disobey them in something, he had to 
consider what kind of disobedience they would most 
readily pardon; and he correctly judged that the 
safest course would be to neglect the °sermons and to 

25 find the rupees. 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 37 

A mind so fertile as Ms, and so little restrained by 
conscientious scruples, speedily discovered several 
modes of relieving the financial embarrassments of the 
government. The allowance of the Nabob of Bengal 
was reduced at a stroke from three hundred and twenty s 
thousand pounds a year to half that sum. The Com- 
pany had bound itself to pay near three hundred thou- 
sand pounds a year to the Great Mogul, as a mark of 
homage for the provinces which he had intrusted to 
their care ; and they had ceded to him the districts of lo 
°Corah and Allahabad. ^On the plea that the Mogul 
was not really indepeudent, but merely a tool in the 
hands of others, Hastings determined to retract these 
concessions. He accordingly declared that the Eng- 
lish vould pay no more tribute, and sent troops to 15 
occupy Allahabad and Corah. The situation of these 
places was such, that there would be little advantage 
and great expense in retaining them. Hastings, who 
wanted money and not territory, determined to sell 
them. A purchaser was not wanting. The rich prov- 20 
ince of Oude had, in the ^general dissolution of the 
Mogul Empire, fallen to the share of the great Mus- 
sulman house by which it is still governed. About 
twenty years ago, this house, by the permission of the 
British government, "assumed the royal title 5 but, in 25 



38 MACAULAY'S ESSAY 

the time of Warren Hastings, sucli an assumption 
would have been considered by the Mahommedans of 
India as a monstrous impiety. The Prince of Oude, 
though he hekl the power, did not venture to use the 
5 style of sovereignty. To the appellation of Nabob or 
Viceroy, he added that of Vizier of the monarchy of 
Hindostan, just as in the last century the Electors of 
Saxony and Brandenburg, though independent of the 
Emperor, and often in arms against him, were proud 

10 to style themselves his Grand Chamberlain and Grand 

Marshal. Sujah Dowlah, then Nabob Vizier, was on 

excellent terms with the English. He had a large 

■ treasure. Allahabad and Corah were so situated that 

they might be of use to him and could be of none to 

15 the Company. The buyer and seller soon came to an 
understanding; and the provinces which had been 
torn from the Mogul were made over to the govern- 
ment of Oude for about half a million sterling. 

But there was another matter still more important 

20 to be settled by the Vizier and the Governor. The 
fate of a brave people was to be decided. It was 
decided in a manner which has left a lasting stain on 

\ the fame of Hastings and of England. 

The people of Central Asia had always been to the 

2; inhabitants of India what the warriors of the German 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 39 

forests were to the subjects of the decaymg monarchy 
of Eome. The dark, slender, and timid Hindoo shrank 
from a conflict with the strong muscle and resolute 
spirit of the fair race, which dwelt beyond their passes. 
There is reason to believe that, at a period anterior to 5 
the dawn of regular history, the people who spoke the 
rich and flexible Sanscrit came from regions lying far 
beyond the Hyphasis and the Hystaspes, and imposed 
their yoke on the children of the soil. It is certain 
that, during the last ten centuries, a succession of 10 
invaders descended from the west on Hindostan ; nor 
was the course of conquest ever turned back towards 
the setting sun, till that memorable campaign in which 
the cross of Saint George was planted on the walls of 
°Ghizni. 15 

The Emperors of Hindostan themselves came from 
the other side of the great mountain ridge ; and it had 
always been their practice to recruit their army from 
the hardy and valiant race from which their own illus- 
trious house sprang. Among the military adventur- 20 
ers who were allured to the Mogul standards from 
the neighborhood of Cabul and Candahar, were con- 
spicuous several gallant bands, known by the name of 
the °E,ohillas. Their services had been rewarded with 
large tracts of land, fiefs of the spear, if we may use 25 



40 MACAULAY'S ESSAY 

an expression drawn from an analogous state of things^ 
in that fertile plain through which the Ramgunga 
flows from the snowy heights of Kumaon to join the 
Ganges. In the general confusion which followed the 
5 death of °Aurungzebe, the warlike colony became vir- 
tually independent. The Rohillas were distinguished 
from the other inhabitants of India by a peculiarly 
fair complexion. They were more honorably dis- 
tinguished by courage in war, and by skill in the arts 

10 of peace. While anarchy raged from Lahore to Cape 
Comorin, their little territory enjoyed the blessings of 
repose under the guardianship of valor. Agriculture 
and commerce flourished among them ; nor were they 
negligent of rhetoric and poetry. Many persons now 

15 living have heard aged men talk with regret of the 
golden days when the Afghan princes ruled in the 
vale of Rohilcund. 

Sujah Dowlah had set his heart on adding this rich 
district to his own principality. Right or show of 

20 right, he had absolutely none. His claim was in no 
respect better founded than that of Catherine to 
Poland, or that of the Bonaparte family to Spain. 
The Rohillas held their country by exactly the same 
title by which he held his, and had governed their 

25 country far better than his had ever been governed. 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 41 

Nor were they a people whom it was perfectly safe^to 
attack. Their land was indeed an open plain destitute\ 
of natural defences ; but their veins were full of the 
high blood of Afghanistan^. /As soldiers, they had not 
the steadiness which is seldom found except in com- 5 
pany with strict discipline ; but their impetuous valor 
had been proved on many fields of battle. It was 
said that their chiefs, when united by common peril, 
could bring eighty thousand men into the field. Sujah 
Dowlah had himself seen them fight, and wisely shrank 10 
from a conflict with them. There was in India one 
army, and only one, against which even those proud 
Caucasian tribes could not stand. It had been abun- 
dantly pro\^ed that neither tenfold odds, nor the mar- 
tial ardor of the boldest Asiatic nations, could avail 15 
aught against English science and resolution. Was it 
possible to induce the Governor of Bengal to let out 
to hire the irresistible energies of the imperial people, 
the skill against which the ablest chiefs of Hindostan 
were helpless as infants, the discipline which had so 20 
often triumphed over the frantic struggles of fanati- 
cism and despair, the unconquerable British courage 
which is never so sedate and stubborn as towards the 
close of a doubtful and murderous day ? 

This was what the Nabob Yizier asked, and what 25 



42 MACAULAY'S ESSAY 

Hastings granted. A bargain was soon struck. Each 
of the negotiators had what the other wanted. Hast- 
ings was in need of funds to carry on tiie government 
of Bengal, and to send remittances to London ; and 
5 Sujah Dowlah had an ample revenue. Sujah Dowlah 
was bent on subjugating the Eohillas ; and Hastings 
had at his disposal the only force by which the 
Eohillas could be subjugated. It was agreed that an 
English army should be lent to the Nabob Vizier, and 

lo that, for the loan, he should pay four hundred thousand 
pounds sterling, besides defraying all the charge of the 
troops while employed in his service. 

" I really cannot see," says Mr. Gleig, " upon what 
grounds, either of political or moral justice, this prop- 

15 osition deserves to be stigmatized as infamous." If 
we understand the meaning of words, it is infamous to 
commit a wicked action for hire, and it is wicked to 
engage in war without provocation. In this particular 
war, scarcely one aggravating circumstance was want- 

20 ing. The object of the Rohilla war was this, to 
deprive a large population, who had never done us 
the least harm, of a good government, and to place 
them, against their will, under an execrably bad one. 
Nay, even this is not all. England now descended far 

25 below the level even of those petty German princes 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 43 

who, about the same time, sold us troops to fight the 
Americans. The hussar-mongers of Hesse and Anspach 
had at least the assurance that the expeditions on 
which their soldiers were to be employed would be con- 
ducted in conformity with the humane rules of civil- 5 
ized warfare. Was the Eohilla war likely to be so 
conducted ? Did the Governor stipulate that it should 
be so conducted ? He well knew what Indian warfare 
was. He well knew that the power which he cove- 
na,nted to put into Sujah Dowlah's hands would, in all 10 
probability, be atrociously abused ; and he required no 
guarantee, no promise that it should not be so abused. 
He did not even reserve to himself the right of with- 
drawing his aid in case of abuse, however gross. We 
are almost ashamed to notice Major Scott's absurd 15 
plea, that Hastings was justified in letting out English 
troops to slaughter the Eohillas, because the Eohillas 
were not of Indian race, but a colony from a distant 
country. What were the English themselves ? Was 
it for them to proclaim a crusade for the expulsion 20 
of all intruders from the countries watered by the 
Ganges ? Did it lie in their mouths to contend that a 
foreign settler who establishes an empire in India is 
a caput lupinum f What would they have said if any 
other power had, on such a ground, attacked Madras 25 



44 MACACLAY'S ESSAY 

or Calcutta without th.e slightest provocation ? Such 
a defence was wanting to make the infamy of the 
transaction complete. The atrocity of the crime, and 
the hypocrisy of the apology, are worthy of each 

5 other. 

One of the three brigades of which the Bengal 
army consisted was sent under Colonel Champion to 
join Sujah Dowlah's forces. The Kohillas expostu- 
lated, entreated, offered a large ransom, but in vain. 

lo They then resolved to defend themselves to the last. 
A bloody battle was fought. "The enemy," says 
Colonel Champion, "gave proof of a good share of 
military knowledge ; and it is impossible to describe 
a more obstinate firmness of resolution than they dis- 

15 played." The dastardly sovereign of Oude fled from 
the field. The English were left unsupported ; but 
their fire and their charge were irresistible. It was 
not, however, till the most distinguished chiefs had 
fallen, fighting bravely at the head of their troops, 

20 that the Rohilla ranks gave way. Then the Nabob 
Vizier and his rabble made their appearance, and 
hastened to plunder the camp of the valiant enemies, 
whom they had never dared to look in the face. The 
soldiers of the Company, trained in an exact disci- 

25 pline, kept unbroken order, while the tents were pil- 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 45 

laged by these worthless allies. But many voices 
were heard to exclaim, " We have had all the fighting, 
and those rogues are to have all the profit." 

Then the horrors of Indian war were let loose on the 
fair valleys and cities of Eohilcund. The whole coun- 5 
try was in a blaze. More than a hundred thousand 
people fled from their homes to pestilential jungles, 
preferring famine, and fever, and the haunts of tigers, 
to, the tyranny of him, to whom an English and a 
•Christian government had, for shameful lucre, sold 10 
their substance, and their blood, and the honor of 
their wives and daughters. Colonel Champion re- 
monstrated with the Nabob Vizier, and sent strong 
representations to Fort William j but the Governor 
had made no conditions as to the mode in which the 15 
war was to be carried on. He had troubled himself 
about nothing but his forty lacs; and, though he 
might disapprove of Sujah Dowlah's wanton barbar- 
ity, he did not think himself entitled to interfere, 
except by offering advice. This delicacy excites the 20 
admiration of the biographer. ^' Mr. Hastings," he 
says, "could not himself dictate to the Nabob, nor 
permit the commander of the Company's troops to 
dictate how the war was to be carried on." No, to be 
sure. Mr. Hastings had only to put down by main 25 



46 MACAULAY'S ESSAY 

force the brave struggles of innocent men fighting for 
their liberty. Their military resistance crushed, his 
duties ended ; and he had then only to fold his arms 
and look on, while their villages were burned, their 

5 children butchered, and their women violated. Will 
Mr. Gleig seriously maintain this opinion ? Is any 
rule more plain than this, that whoever voluntarily 
gives to another irresistible power over human beings 
is bound to take order that such power shall not be 

10 barbarously abused ? But we beg pardon of our 
readers for arguing a point so clear. 

We hasten to the end of this sad and disgraceful 
story. The war ceased. The finest population in 
India was subjected to a greedy, cowardly, cruel 

15 tyrant. Commerce and agriculture languished. The 
rich province which had tempted the cupidity of 
Sujah Dowlah became the most miserable part even of 
his miserable dominions. Yet is the injured nation 
not extinct. At long intervals gleams of its ancient 

20 spirit have flashed forth ; and even at this day, valor, 
and self-respect, and a chivalrous feeling rare among 
Asiatics, and a bitter remembrance of the great crime 
of England, distinguish that noble Afghan race. To 
this day they are regarded as the best of all sepoys 

25 at the cold steel ; and it was very recently remarked, 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 47 

by one who had enjoyed great opportunities of obser- 
vation, that the only natives of India to whom the 
word "gentleman" can with perfect propriety be 
applied, are to be found among the E-ohillas. 

Whatever we may think of the morality of Hast- 5 
ings, it cannot be denied that the financial results of 
his policy did honor to his talents. In less than two 
years after he assumed the government, he had, with- 
out imposing any additional burdens on the people 
subject to his authority, added about four hundred 10 
and fifty thousand pounds to the annual income of the 
Company, besides procuring about a million in ready 
money. He had also relieved the finances of Bengal 
from military expenditure, amounting to near a quar- 
ter of a million a year, and had thrown that charge on 15 
the Nabob of Oude. There can be no doubt that this 
was a result which, if it had been obtained by honest 
means, would have entitled him to the warmest grati- 
tude of his country, and which, by whatever means 
obtained, proved that he possessed great talents for 20 
administration. 

In the mean time. Parliament had been engaged in 
long and grave discussions on Asiatic affairs. The 
ministry of Lord North, in the session of 1773, intro- 
duced a measure which made a considerable change in 25 



48 MACAULAY^S ESSAY 

the constitution of the Indian government. This law, 
known by the name of °the Regulating Act, provided 
that the presidency of Bengal should exercise a con- 
trol over the other possessions of the Company ; that 
5 the chief of that presidency should be styled Gov- 
ernor-General ; that he should be assisted by four 
Councillors; and that a supreme court of judicature, 
consisting of a chief justice and three inferior judges, 
should be established at Calcutta. This court was made 

10 independent of the Governor-General and Council, and 
was intrusted with a civil and criminal jurisdiction of 
immense and, at the same time, of undefined extent. 

The Governor-General and Councillors were named 
in the act, and were to hold their situations for five 

15 years. Hastings was to be the first Governor-General. 
One of the four new Councillors, Mr. Barwell, an 
experienced servant of the Company, was then in 
India. The other three. General Clavering, Mr. Mon- 
son, and Mr. Francis, were sent out from England. 

20 The ablest of the new Councillors was, beyond all 
doubt, Philip Francis. His acknowledged composi- 
tions prove that he possessed considerable eloquence 
and information. Several years passed in the public 
offices had formed him to habits of business. His 

25 enemies have never denied that he had a fearless and 



OW WARREN HASTINGS 49 

manly spirit; and his friends, we are afraid, must 
acknowledge that his estimate of himself was extrava- 
gantly high, that his temper was irritable, that his 
deportment was often rude and petulant, and that his 
hatred was of intense bitterness and long duration. 5 

It is scarcely possible to mention this eminent man 
without adverting for a moment to the question which 
his name at once suggests to every mind. Was he 
the author of the "Letters of Junius ? Our own firm 
belief is that he was. The evidence is, we think, such 10 
as would support a verdict in a civil, nay, in a criminal 
proceeding. The handwriting of Junius is the very 
peculiar handwriting of Francis, slightly disguised. 
As to the position, pursuits, and connections of Junius, 
the following are the most important facts which can 15 
be considered as clearly proved: first, that he was 
acquainted with the technical forms of the secretary 
of state's office ; secondly, that he was intimately ac- 
quainted with the business of the war-office ; thirdly, 
that he, during the year 1770, attended debates in the 20 
House of Lords, and took notes of speeches, particu- 
larly of the speeches of Lord Chatham ; fourthly, that 
he bitterly resented the appointment of Mr. Chamier 
to the place of deputy secretary-at-war ; fifthly, that 
he was bound by some strong tie to the first Lord 25 



50 MAC AUL AY'S ESSAY 

Holland. Now, Francis passed some years in the 
secretary of state's office. He was subsequently chief 
clerk of the war-office. He repeatedly mentioned that 
he had himself, in 1770, heard speeches of Lord 
5 Chatham; and some of these speeches were actually 
printed from his notes. He resigned his clerkship at 
the war-office from resentment at the appointment of 
Mr. Chamier. It was by Lord Holland that he was 
first introduced into the public service. Now, here 

lo are live marks, all of which ought to be found in 
Junius. They are all five found in Francis. We do 
not believe that more than two of them can be found 
in any other person whatever. H this argument does 
not settle the question, there is an end of all reasoning 

15 on circumstantial evidence. 

The internal evidence seems to us to point the same 
way. The style of Francis bears a strong resem- 
blance to that of Junius ; nor are we disposed to 
admit, what is generally taken for granted, that the 

20 acknowledged compositions of Francis are very de- 
cidedly inferior to the anonymous letters. The argu- 
ment from inferiority, at all events, is one which may 
be urged with at least equal force against every claim- 
ant that has ever been mentioned, with the single ex- 

25 ception of Burke ; and it would be a waste of time to 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 51 

prove tliat Burke was not Junius. And what conclu- 
sion, after all, can be drawn from mere inferiority ? 
Every writer must produce liis best work ; and the 
interval between his best work and his second best 
work may be very wide indeed. Nobody will say that 5 
the best letters of Junius are more decidedly superior 
to the acknowledged works of Francis than three or 
four of Corneille's tragedies to the rest, than three or 
four of Ben Jonson's comedies to the rest, than the 
Pilgrim's Progress to the other works of Bnnyan, than 10 
Don Quixote to the other works of Cervantes. Nay, 
it is certain that Junius, whoever he may have been, 
was a most unequal writer. To go no further than the 
letters which bear the signature of Junius ; the letter 
to the King, and the letters to Home Tooke, have 15 
little in common, except the asperity ; and asperity 
was an ingredient seldom wanting either in the writ- 
ings Or in the speeches of Francis. 

Indeed one of the strongest reasons for believing 
that Francis was Junius is the moral resemblance 20 
between .the two men. It is not difficult, from the 
letters which, under various signatures, are known to 
have been written by Junius, and from his dealings 
with °Woodfall and others, to form a tolerably correct 
notion of his character. He was clearly a man not 25 



52 MACAULAY-S ESSAY 

destitute of real patriotism and magnanimity, a man 
whose vices were not of a sordid kind. But he must 
also have been a man in the highest degree arrogant 
and insolent, a man prone to malevolence, and prone 

5 to the error of mistaking his malevolence for public 
virtue. °"Doest thou well to be angry?" was the 
question asked in old time of the Hebrew prophet. 
And he answered, " I do well." This was evidently 
the temper of Junius ; and to this cause we attribute 

10 the savage cruelty which disgraces several of his 
letters. No man is so merciless as he who, under a 
strong self-delusion, confounds his antipathies with 
his duties. It may be added that Junius, though 
allied with the democratic party by common enmities, 

15 was the very opposite of a democratic politician. 
While attacking individuals with a ferocity which 
perpetually violated all the laws of literary warfarCj 
he regarded the most defective parts of old institu- 
tions with a respect amounting to pedantry, pleaded 

20 the cause of °01d Sarum with fervor, and contemptu- 
ously told the capitalists of Manchester and Leeds 
that, if they wanted votes, they might buy land and 
become freeholders of Lancashire and Yorkshire. All 
this, we believe, might stand, with scarcely any change, 

25 for a character of Philip Francis. 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 53 

It is not strange that tlie great anonymous writer 
should have been willing at that time to leave the 
country which had been so powerfully stirred by his 
eloquence. Every thing had gone against him. That 
party which he clearly preferred to every other, the 5 
party of George Grenville, had been scattered by 
the death of its chief; and Lord Suffolk had led the 
greater part of it over to the ministerial benches. 
The ferment produced by the Middlesex election had 
gone down. Every faction must have been alike an 10 
object of aversion to Junius. His opinions on domes- 
tic affairs separated him from the ministry ; his 
opinions on colonial affairs from the opposition. 
Under such circumstances, he had thrown down his 
pen in misanthropical despair. His farewell letter to 15 
Woodfall bears date the nineteenth of January 1773. 
In that letter, he declared that he must be an idiot to 
write again ; that he had meant well by the cause and 
the public ; that both were given up ; that there were 
not ten men who would act steadily together on any 20 
question. '' But it is all alike,'' he added, " vile and 
contemptible. You have never flinched that I know of ; 
and I shall always rejoice to hear of your prosperity." 
These were the last words of Junius. In a year from 
that time, Philip Francis was on his voyage to Bengal. 25 



54 MACAULAY\S ESSAY 

With the three new Councillors came out the judges 
of the Supreme Court. The chief justice was Sir 
Elijah Impey. He was an old acquaintance of Hast- 
ings ; and it is probable that the Governor-General, if 

5 he had searched through all the "Inns of Court, could 
not have found an equally serviceable tool. But the 
members of Council were by no means in an obsequi- 
ous mood. Hastings greatly disliked the new form 
of government, and had no very high opinion of his 

10 coadjutors. They had heard of this, and were disposed 
to be suspicious and punctilious. When men are in 
such a frame of mind, any trifle is sufficient to give 
occasion for dispute. The members of Council expected 
a salute of °twenty-one guns from the batteries of 

15 Fort William. Hastings allowed them only seventeen. 
They landed in ill-humor. The first civilities were 
exchanged with cold reserve. On the morrow com- 
menced that long quarrel which, after distracting 
British India, was renewed in England, and in which 

20 all the most eminent statesmen and orators of the age 
took active part on one or the other side. 

Hastings was supported by Barwell. They had not 
always been friends. But the arrival of the new mem- 
bers of Council from England naturally had the effect 

25 of uniting the old servants of the Company. Claver- 



OA^ WARREN liASTmGS 55 

ing, Monson, and Francis formed the majority. They 
instantly wrested the government out of the hands of 
Hastings, condemned, certainly not without justice, 
his late dealings with the Nabob Vizier, recalled the 
English agent from Oude, and sent thither a creature s 
of their own, ordered the brigade which had conquered 
the unhappy Eohillas to return to the Company's 
territories, and instituted a severe inquiry into the 
conduct of the war. Next, in spite of the Governor- 
General's remonstrances, they proceeded to exercise, lo 
in the most indiscreet manner, their new authority 
over the subordinate presidencies ; threw all the affairs 
of "Bombay into confusion; and interfered, with an 
incredible union of rashness and feebleness, in the 
intestine disputes of the Mahratta government. At 15 
the same time, they fell on the internal administration 
of Bengal, and attacked the whole fiscal and judicial 
system, a system which was undoubtedly defective, 
but which it was very improbable that gentlemen 
fresh from England would be competent to amend. 20 
The effect of their reforms was that all protection to 
life and property was withdrawn, and that gangs of 
robbers plundered and slaughtered with impunity in 
the very suburbs of Calcutta. Hastings continued to 
live in the Government-house, and to draw the salary 25 



56 MACAULAY^S ESSAY 

of Governor-General. He continued even to take the 
lead at the council-board in the transaction of ordinary- 
business ; for his opponents could not but feel that he 
knew much of which they were ignorant, and that he 
5 decided, both surely and speedily, many questions 
which to them would have been hopelessly puzzling. 
But the higher powers of government and the most 
valuable patronage had been taken from him. 

The natives soon found this out. They considered 

10 him as a fallen man ; and they acted after their kind. 
Some of our readers may have seen, in India, a cloud 
of crows pecking a sick vulture to death, no bad type 
of what happens in that country, as often as fortune 
deserts one who has been great and dreaded. In an 

15 instant, all the sycophants who had lately been ready 
to lie for him, to forge for him, to pander for him, to 
poison for him, hasten to purchase the favor of his 
victorious enemies by accusing him. An Indian gov- 
ernment has only to let it be understood that it wishes 

20 a particular man to be ruined ; and, in twenty-four 
hours, it will be furnished with grave charges, sup- 
ported by dispositions so full and circumstantial that 
any person unaccustomed to Asiatic mendacity would 
regard them as decisive. It is well if the signature of 

25 the destined victim is not counterfeited at the foot of 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 57 

some illegal compact, and if some treasonable paper 
is not slipped into a hiding-place in Ms house. Hast- 
ings was now regarded as helpless. The power to 
make or mar the fortune of every man in Bengal had 
passed, as it seemed, into the hands of the new Coun- 5 
cillors. Immediately charges against the Governor- 
General began to pour in. They were eagerly welcomed 
by the majority, who, to do them justice, were men of 
too much honor knowingly to countenance false accu- 
sations, but who were not sufficiently acquainted with 10 
the East to be aware that, in that part of the world, 
a very little encouragement from power will call forth, 
in a week, more °Oateses, and Bedloes, and Danger- 
fields, than Westminster Hall sees in a century. 

It v/puld have been strange indeed if, at such a 15 
juncture, ISTuncomar had remained quiet. That bad 
man was stimulated at once by malignity, by avarice, 
and by ambition. Now was the time to be avenged on 
his old enemy,. to wreak a grudge of seventeen years, 
to establish himself in the favor of the majority of the 20 
Council, to become the greatest native in Bengal. From 
the time of the arrival of the new Councillors, he had 
paid the most marked court to them, and had in con- 
sequence been excluded, with all indignity, from the 
Government-house. He now put into the hands of 25 



58 MACAULAY'S ESSAY 

Francis, with great ceremony, a paper containing 
several charges of the most serious description. By 
this document Hastings was accused of putting offices 
up for sale, and of receiving bribes for suffering of- 
5 fenders to escape. In particular, it was alleged that 
Mahommed Reza Khan had been dismissed with 
impunity, in consideration of a great sum paid to 
the Governor-General. 

Francis read the paper in Council. A violent alter- 

10 cation followed. Hastings complained in bitter terms 
of the way in which he was treated, spoke with con- 
tempt of Nuncomar and of Nuncomar's accusation, 
and denied the right of the Council to sit in judgment 
on the Governor. At the next meeting of the Board, 

15 another communication from Nuncomar was produced. 
He requested that he might be permitted to attend the 
Council, and that he might be heard in support of his 
assertions. Another tempestuous debate took place. 
The Governor-General maintained that the council- 

20 rooui was not a proper place for such an investiga- 
tion; that from persons who were heated by daily 
conflict with him he could not expect the fairness of 
judges ; and that he could not, without betraying the 
dignity of his post, submit to be confronted with such 

25 a man as Nuiicomar. The majority, however, resolved 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 59 

to go into the charges. Hastings rose, declared the 
sitting at an end, and left the room, followed by 
Barwell. The other members kept their seats, voted 
themselves a council, put Clavering in the chair, and 
ordered Nuncomar to be called in. Nuncomar not only 5 
adhered to the original charges, but, after the fashion 
of the East, produced a large supplement. He stated 
that Hastings had received a great sum for appointing 
Eajah Goordas treasurer of the Nabob's household, and 
for committing the care of his Highness's person to the 10 
°Munny Begum. He put in a letter purporting to bear 
the seal of the Munny Begum, for the purpose of estab- 
lishing the truth of his story. The seal, whether forged, 
as Hastings affirmed, or genuine, as we are rather in- 
clined to believe, proved nothing. Nuncomar, as every 15 
body knows who knows India, had only to tell the 
Munny Begum that such a letter would give pleasure 
to the majority of the Council, in order to procure her 
attestation. The majority, however, voted that the 
charge was made out ; that Hastings had corruptly 20 
received between thirty and forty thousand pounds ; 
and that he ought to be compelled to refund. 

The general feeling among the English in Bengal 
was strongly in favor of the Governor-General. In 
talents for business, in knowledge of the country, in 25 



60 MACAULAY'S ESSAY 

general courtesy of demeanor, he was decidedly su- 
perior to his persecutors. The servants of the Com- 
pany were naturally disposed to side with the most 
distinguished member of their own body against a 

5 clerk from the war-oihce, who, profoundly ignorant of 
the native languages and of the native character, took 
on himself to regulate every department of the admin- 
istration. Hastings, however, in spite of the general 
sympathy of his countrymen, was in a most painful 

10 situation. There was still an appeal to higher author- 
ity in England. If that authority took part with his 
enemies, nothing was left to him but to throw up his 
office. He accordingly placed his resignation in the 
hands of his agent in London, Colonel Macleane. But 

15 Macleane was instructed not to produce the resignation 

unless it should be fully ascertained that the feeling at 

the India House was adverse to the Governor-General. 

°The triumph of Nuncomar seemed to be complete. 

He held a daily levee, to which his countrymen 

20 resorted in crowds, and to which, on one occasion, the 
majority of the Council condescended to repair. His 
house was an office for the purpose of receiving 
charges against the Governor-General. It was said 
that, partly by threats, and partly by wheedling, the 

25 villanous Brahmin had induced many of the wealthi- 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 61 

est men of the province to send in complaints. But 
he was playing a perilous game. It was not safe to 
drive to despair a man of such resources and such 
determination as Hastings. IsTuncomar, with all his 
acuteness, did not understand the nature of the insti- 5 
tutions under which he lived. He saw that he had 
with him the majority of the body which made 
treaties, gave places, raised taxes. The separation 
between political and judicial functions was a thing of 
which he had no conception. It had probably never 10 
occurred to him that there was in Bengal an authority 
perfectly independent of the Council, an authority 
which could protect one whom the Council wished 
to destroy, and send to the gibbet one whom the 
Council wished to protect. Yet such was the fact. 15 
The Supreme Court was, within the sphere of its own 
duties, altogether independent of the Government. 
Hastings, with his usual sagacity, had seen how much 
advantage he might derive from possessing himself of 
this stronghold ; and he had acted accordingly. The zo 
Judges, especially the Chief Justice, were hostile to 
the majority of the Council. The time had now come 
for putting this formidable machinery into action. 

On a sudden, Calcutta was astounded by the news 
that Nuncomar had been taken up on a charge of 25 



62 MAC AUL AY'S ESSAY 

felony, committed, and thrown into the common gaol. 
The crime imputed to him was that six years before 
he had forged a bond. The ostensible prosecutor was 
a native. But it was then, and still is, the opinion 
5 of everybody, idiots and biographers excepted, that 
Hastings was the real mover in the business. 

The rage of the majority rose to the highest point. 
They protested against the proceedings of the Su- 
preme Court, and sent several urgent messages to the 

10 Judges, demanding that Nuncomar should be admitted 
to bail. The Judges returned haughty and resolute 
answers. All that the Council could do was to heap 
honors and emoluments on the family of Nuncomar ; 
and this they did. In the mean time the assizes com- 

15 menced; a true bill was found; and Nuncomar was 
brought before Sir Elijah Impey and a jury com- 
posed of Englishmen. A great quantity of contradic- 
tory swearing, and the necessity of having every word 
of the evidence interpreted, protracted the trial to a 

20 most unusual length. At last a verdict of guilty was 
returned, and the Chief Justice pronounced sentence 
of death on the prisoner. 

That Impey ought to have respited Nuncomar we 
hold to be perfectly clear. Whether the whole pro- 

25 ceeding was not illegal, is a question. But it is cer- 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 63 

tain that, whatever may have been, according to tech- 
nical rules of construction, the effect of the statute 
under v^hich the trial took place, it was most unjust 
to hang a Hindoo for forgery. The law which made 
forgery capital in England was passed without the 5 
smallest reference to the state of society in India. It 
was unknown to the natives of India. It had never 
been put in execution among them, certainly not for 
want of delinquents. It was in the highest degree 
shocking to all their notions. They were not accus- 10 
tomed to the distinction which many circumstances, 
peculiar to our own state of society, have led us to 
make between forgery and other kinds of cheating. 
The counterfeiting of a seal was, in their estimation, 
a common act of swindling; nor had it ever crossed 15 
their minds that it was to be punished as severely as 
gang-robbery or assassination. A just judge would, 
beyond all doubt, have reserved the case for the con- 
sideration of the sovereign. But Impey would not 
hear of mercy or delay. 20 

The excitement among all classes was great. 
Erancis and Erancis's few English adherents de- 
scribed the Governor-General and the Chief Justice 
as the worst of murderers. Clavering, it was said, 
swore that, even at the foot of the gallows, Nuncomar 25 



64 MACAULAY^S ESSAY 

should be rescued. The bulk of the European society, 
though strongly attached to the Governor-General, 
could not but feel compassion for a man who with all 
his crimes, had so long filled so large a space in their 

5 sight, who had been great and powerful before the 
British empire in India began to exist, and to whom, 
in the old times, governors and members of council, 
then mere commercial factors, had paid court for pro- 
tection. The feeling of the Hindoos was infinitely 

10 stronger. They were, indeed, not a people to strike 
one blow for their countryman. But his sentence 
filled them with sorrow and dismay. Tried even by 
their low standard of morality, he was a bad man. 
But, bad as he was, he was the head of their race and 

15 religion, a Brahmin of the Brahmins. He had in- 
herited the purest and highest caste. He had prac- 
tised with the greatest punctuality all those ceremonies 
to which the °superstitious Bengalees ascribe far more 
importance than to the correct discharge of the social 

20 duties. They felt, therefore, as a devout Catholic in 
the dark ages would have felt, at seeing a prelate of 
the highest dignity sent to the gallows by a secular 
tribunal. According to their old national laws, a 
Brahmin could not be put to death for any crime 
25 whatever. And the crime for which Nuncomar was 



ON WARREN HASTINGS ^^ 

about to die was regarded by them in mucli the same 
light in which the selling of an unsound horse^ for a 
sound price, is regarded by a Yorkshire jockey. 

The Mussulmans alone appear to have seen with 
exultation the fate of the powerful Hindoo, who had 5 
attempted to rise by means of the ruin of Mahommed 
Reza Khan. The Mahommedan historian of those 
times takes delight in aggravating the charge. He 
assures us that in Nuncomar's house a casket was 
found containing counterfeits of the seals of all the 10 
richest men of the province. We have never fallen 
in with any other authorit}^ for this story, which in 
itself is by no means improbable. 

The day drew near ; and Nuncomar prepared him- 
self to die with that quiet fortitude with which the 15 
Bengalee, so effeminately timid in personal conflict, 
often encounters calamities for which there is no 
remedy. The sheriff, with the humanity which is 
seldom wanting in an English gentleman, visited the 
prisoner on the eve of the execution, and assured him 20 
that no indulgence, consistent with the law, should be 
refused to him. Nuncomar expressed his gratitude 
with great politeness and unaltered composure. Not 
a muscle of his face moved. Not a sigh broke from 
him. He put his finger to his forehead, and calmly 25 



66 MACAULAY'S ESSAY 

said that fate would have its wa}^, and that there was 
no resisting the pleasure of God. He sent his compli- 
ments to Francis, Clavering, and Monson, and charged 
them to protect Kajah Goordas, who was about to 

5 become the head of the Brahmins of Bengal. The 
sheriff withdrew, greatly agitated by what had passed, 
and Nuncomar sat composedly down to write notes 
and examine accounts. 

The next morning, before the sun was in his power, 

lo an immense concourse assembled round the place 
where the gallows had been set up. Grief and horror 
were on every face ; yet to the last the multitude 
could hardly believe that the English really purposed 
to take the life of the great Brahmin. At length the 

15 mournful procession came through the crowd. Nun- 
comar sat up in his palanquin, and looked round him 
with unaltered serenity. He had just parted from 
those who were most nearly connected with him. 
Their cries and contortions had appalled the Euro- 

20 pean ministers of justice, but had not produced the 
smallest effect on the iron stoicism of the prisoner. 
The only anxiety which he expressed was that men of 
his own priestly caste might be in attendance to take 
charge of his corpse. He again desired to be remem- 

25 bered to his friends in the Council, mounted the 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 67 

scaffold with firmness, and gave the signal to the 
executioner. The moment that the drop fell, a howl 
of sorrow and despair rose from the innumerable spec- 
tators. Hundreds turned away their faces from the 
polluting sight, fled with loud wailings towards the 5 
Hoogiey, and plunged into its °holy waters, as if to 
purify themselves from the guilt of having looked on 
such a crime. These feelings were not confined to 
Calcutta. The whole province was greatly excited ; 
and the population of Decca, in particular, gave strong 10 
signs of grief and dismay. 

Of Impey's conduct it is impossible to speak too 
severely. We have already said that, in our opinion, 
he acted unjustly in refusing to respite Nuncomar. 
No rational man can doubt that he took this course in 15 
order to gratify the Governor-General. If we had 
ever had any doubts on that point, they would have 
been dispelled by a letter which Mr. Gleig has pub- 
lished. Hastings, three or four years later, described 
Impey as the man " to whose support he was at one 20 
time indebted for the safety of his fortune, honor, and 
reputation." These strong words can refer only to 
the case of ISTuncomar ; and they must mean that 
Impey hanged IsTuncomar in order to support Hastings. 
°It is, therefore, our deliberate opinion that Impey, 25 



68 MAGAULAY^S ESSAY 

sitting as a judge, put a man unjustly to death in order 
to serve a political purpose. 

But we look on the conduct of Hastings in a some- 
what different light. He was struggling for fortune, 

5 honor, liberty, all that makes life valuable. He was 
beset by rancorous and unprincipled enemies. From 
his colleagues he could expect no justice. He cannot 
be blamed for wishing to crush his accusers. He was 
indeed bound to use only legitimate means for that 

10 end. But it was not strange that he should have 
thought any means legitimate which were pronounced 
legitimate by the sages of the law, by men whose 
peculiar duty it was to deal justly between adver- 
saries, and whose education might be supposed to 

15 have peculiarly qualified them for the discharge of 
that duty. Nobody demands from a party the unbend- 
ing equity of a judge. The reason that judges are 
appointed is, that even a good man cannot be trusted 
to decide a cause in which he is himself concerned. 

20 Not a day passes on which an honest prosecutor does 
not ask for what none but a dishonest tribunal would 
grant. It is too much to expect that any man, when 
his dearest interests are at stake, and his strongest 
passions excited, will, as against himself, be more just 

25 than the sworn dispensers of justice. To take an anal- 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 69 

ogous case from tlie history of our own island : suppose 
that Lord Stafford, when in the Tower on suspicion of 
being concerned in the Popish plot, had been apprised 
that Titus Gates had done something which might, 
by a questionable construction, be brought under the 5 
head of felony. Should we severely blame Lord 
Stafford, in the supposed case, for causing a prosecu- 
tion to be instituted, for furnishing funds, for using all 
his influence to intercept the mercy of the Crown ? We 
think not. If a judge, indeed, from favor to the Cath- 10 
olic lords, were to strain the law in order to hang Gates, 
such a judge would richly deserve impeachment. But 
it does not appear to us that the Catholic lord, by 
bringing the case before the judge for decision, would 
materially overstep the limits of a just self-defence. 15 

While, therefore, we have not the least doubt that 
this memorable execution is to be attributed to Hast- 
ings, w^e doubt whether it can with justice be reckoned 
among his crimes. That his conduct was dictated by 
a profound policy is evident. He was in a minority 20 
in Council. It was possible that he might long be in 
a minority. He knew the native character well. He 
knew in what abundance accusations are certain to 
flow in against the most innocent inhabitant of India 
who is under the frown of power. There was not in 25 



70 MAC AUL AY'S ESSAY 

the whole black population of Bengal a "place-holder, 
a °place-hunter, a government tenant, who did not 
think that he might better himself by sending up a 
deposition against the Governor-General. Under 
5 these circumstances, the persecuted statesman resolved 
to teach the whole crew of accusers and witnesses 
that, though in a minority at the council-board, he 
was still to be feared. The lesson which he gave 
them was indeed a lesson not to be forgotten. The 

10 head of the combination which had been formed 
against him, the richest, the most powerful, the most 
artful of the Hindoos, distinguished by the favor of 
those who then held the government, fenced round by 
the superstitious reverence of millions, was hanged in 

15 broad day before many thousands of people. Every 
thing that could make the warning impressive, dignity 
in the sufferer, solemnity in the proceeding, was found 
in this case. The helpless rage and vain struggles of 
the Council made the triumph more signal. From 

20 that moment the conviction of every native was that 
it was safer to take the part of Hastings in a minority 
than that of Francis in a majority, and that he who 
was so venturous as to join in running down the 
Governor-General might chance, in the phrase of the 

25 Eastern poet, to find a tiger, while beating the jungle 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 71 

for a deer. The voices of a thousand informers were 
silenced in an instant. From that time, whatever 
difficulties Hastings might have to encounter, he was 
never molested by accusations from natives of India. 

It is a remarkable circumstance that one of the 5 
letters of Hastings to Dr. Johnson bears date a very 
few hours after the death of Nuncomar. While the 
whole settlement was in commotion, while a mighty 
and ancient priesthood were weeping over the remains 
of their chief, the conqueror in that deadly grapple 10 
sat down, with characteristic self-possession, to write 
about the Tour to the Hebrides, °Jones's Persian 
Grammar, and the history, traditions, arts, and natural 
productions of India. 

In the mean time, intelligence of the Eohilla war, 15 
and of the first disputes between Hastings and his 
colleagues, had reached London. The Directors took 
part with the majority, and sent out a letter filled 
with severe reflections on the conduct of Hastings. 
They condemned, in strong but just terms, the iniquity 20 
of undertaking offensive wars merely' for the sake of 
pecuniary advantage. But they entirely forgot that, 
if Hastings had by illicit means obtained pecuniary 
advantages, he had done so, not for his own benefit, 
but in order to meet their demands. To enjoin 25 



72 MACAULAY^S ESSAY 

honesty, and to insist on having what could not be 
honestly got, was then the constant practice of the 
Company. As Lady Macbeth says of her husband, 
they "would not play false, aud yet would wrongly 

5 win." 

The Regulating Act, by which Hastings had been 
appointed Governor-General for five years, empowered 
the Crown to remove him on an address from the 
Company. °Lord North was desirous to procure such 

10 an address. The three members of Council who had 
been sent out from England were men of his own 
choice. General Clavering, in particular, was sup- 
ported by a large parliamentary connection, such as 
no cabinet could be inclined to disoblige. The wish 

15 of the minister was to displace Hastings, and to put 
Clavering at the head of the government. In the 
Court of Directors parties were very nearly balanced. 
Eleven voted against Hastings ; ten for him. The 
Court of Proprietors was then convened. The great 

20 sale-room presented a singular appearance. Letters 
had been sent by the Secretary of the Treasury, ex- 
horting all the supporters of government who held 
India stock to be in attendance. Lord Sandwich 
marshalled the friends of the administration with his 

25 usual dexterity and alertness. Fifty peers and privy 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 73 

councillors, seldom seen so far eastward, were counted 
in the crowd. The debate lasted till midnight. The 
opponents of Hastings had a small superiority on the 
division ; but a ballot was demanded ; and the result 
was that the Governor-General triumphed by a ma- 5 
jority of above a hundred votes over the combined 
efforts of the Directors and the Cabinet. The minis- 
ters were greatly exasperated by this defeat. Even 
Lord North lost his temper, no ordinary occurrence 
with him, and threatened to convoke Parliament before 10 
Christmas, and to bring in a bill for depriving the 
Company of all political power, and for restricting 
it to its old business of trading in silks and teas. 

Colonel Macleane, who through all this conflict 
had zealously supported the cause of Hastings, now 15 
thought that his employer was in imminent danger of 
being turned out, branded with parliamentary censure, 
perhaps prosecuted. The opinion of the crown law- 
yers had already been taken respecting some parts 
of the Governor-General's conduct. It seemed to be 20 
high time to think of securing an honorable retreat. 
Under these circumstances, Macleane thought himself 
justified in producing the resignation with which he 
had been entrusted. The instrument was not in very 
accurate form ; but the Directors were too eager to 25 



74 MACAULAY'S ESSAY 

be scrupulous. They accepted the resignation, fixed 
on Mr. Wheler, one of their own body, to succeed 
Hastings, and sent out orders that General Clavering, 
as senior member of Council, should exercise the 

5 functions of Governor-General till Mr. Wheler should 
arrive. 

But, while these things were passing in England, 
a great change had taken place in Bengal. Monson 
was no more. Only four members of the government 

10 were left. Clavering and Francis were on one side, 
Barwell and the Governor-General on the other ; and 
the Governor-General had the casting vote. Hastings, 
who had been during two years destitute of all power 
and patronage, became at once absolute. He instantly 

15 proceeded to retaliate on his adversaries. Their 
measures were reversed : their creatures were dis- 
placed. A new valuation of the lands of Bengal, for 
the purposes of taxation, was ordered : and it was 
provided that the whole inquiry should be conducted 

20 by the Governor-General, and that all the letters re- 
lating to it should run in his name. He began, at 
the same time, to revolve vast plans of conquest and 
dominion, plans which he lived to see realized, though 
not by himself. His project was to form subsidiary 

25 alliances with the native princes, particularly with 



ON WAKREN HASTINGS . 75 

those of Oude and Berar, and thus to make Britain 
the paramount power in India. While he was medi- 
tating these great designs, arrived the intelligence 
that he had ceased to be Governor-General, that his 
resignation had been accepted, that Wheler was com- 5 
ing out immediately, and that, till Wheler arrived, 
the chair was to be filled by Clavering. 

Had Hastings still been in a minority, he would 
probably have retired without a struggle ; but he was 
now the real master of British India, and he was not 10 
disposed to quit his high place. He asserted that he 
had never given any instructions which could warrant 
the steps taken at home. What his instructions had 
been, he owned he had forgotten. If he had kept a 
copy of them he had mislaid it. But he was certain 15 
that he had repeatedly declared to the Directors that 
he would, not resign. He could not see how the court, 
possessed of that declaration from himself, could 
receive his resignation from the doubtful hands of an 
agent. If the resignation were invalid, all the pro- 20 
ceedings which were founded on that resignation 
were null, and Hastings was still Governor-Gen- 
eral. 

He afterwards affirmed that, though his agents 
had not acted in conformity with his instructions, he 25 



76 MACAULAY^S ESSAY 

would nevertheless have held himself bound by their 
acts, if Clavering had not attempted to seize the 
supreme power by violence. Whether this assertion 
were or were not true, it cannot be doubted that the 
5 imprudence of Clavering gave Hastings an advantage. 
The General sent for the keys of the fort and of the 
treasury, took possession of the records, and held a 
council at which Francis attended. Hastings took 
the chair in another apartment, and Barwell sat with 

10 him. Each of the two parties had a plausible show 
of right. There was no authority entitled to their 
obedience within fifteen thousand miles. It seemed 
that there remained no way of settling the dispute 
except an appeal to arms ; and from such an appeal 

15 Hastings, confident of his influence over his country- 
men in India, was not inclined to shrink. He directed 
the officers of the garrison at Fort William and of all 
the neighboring stations to obey no orders but his. 
At the same time, with admirable judgment, he 

20 offered to submit the case to the Supreme Court, and 
to abide by its decision. By making this proposition 
he risked nothing ; yet it was a proposition which his 
opponents could hardly reject. Nobody could be 
treated as a criminal for obeying what the judges 

25 should solemnly pronounce to be the lawful govern- 



ON WARREN HASTINGS IT 

ment. The boldest man would shrink from taking 
arms in defence of what the judges should pronounce 
to be usurpation. Clavering and Francis, after some 
delay, unwillingly consented to abide by the award of 
the court. The court pronounced that the resignation 5 
was invalid, and that therefore Hastings was still 
Governor-General under the Eegulating Act ; and the 
defeated members of the Council, finding that the 
sense of the whole settlement was against them, 
acquiesced in the decision. 10 

About this time arrived the news that, after a suit 
which had lasted several years, the Franconian courts 
had decreed a divorce between Imhoff and his wife. 
The Baron left Calcutta, carrying with him the means 
of buying an estate in Saxony. The lady became 15 
Mrs. Hastings. The event was celebrated by great 
festivities ; and all the most conspicuous persons at 
Calcutta, without distinction of parties, were invited 
to the Government-house. Clavering, as the Moham- 
medan chronicler tells the story, was sick in mind and 20 
body, and excused himself from joining the splendid 
assembly. But Hastings, whom, as it should seem, 
success in ambition and in love had put into high 
good-humor, would take no denial. He went himself 
to the General's house, and at length brought his 25 



78 MACAULAY'S ESSAY 

vanquished rival in triumph to the gay circle which 
surrounded the bride. The exertion was too much for 
a frame broken by mortification as well as by disease. 
Clavering died a few days later. 

5 Wheler, who came out expecting to be Governor- 
General, and was forced to content himself with a 
seat at the council-board, generally voted with Francis. 
But the Governor-General, with Barw^elPs help and 
his own casting vote, was still the master. Some 

10 change took place at this time in the feeling both of 
the Court of Directors and of the Ministers of the 
Crown. All designs against Hastings were dropped ; 
and, when his original term of five years expired, he 
was quietly reappointed. The truth is, that the fear- 

15 ful dangers to which the public interests in every 
quarter were now exposed, made both Lord North 
and the Company unwdlling to part with a Governor 
whose talents, experience, and resolution, enmity itself 
was compelled to acknowledge. 

20 The crisis was indeed formidable. The great and 
victorious empire, on the throne of which George the 
Third had taken his seat "eighteen years before, with 
brighter hopes than had attended the accession of any 
of the long line of English sovereigns, had, by the 

25 most senseless misgovernment, been brought to the 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 79 

verge of ruin. In America millions of Englishmen 
were at war with the country from which their blood, 
their language, their religion, and their institutions 
were derived, and to which, but a short time before, 
they had been as strongly attached as the inhabitants 5 
of Norfolk and Leicestershire. The great powers of 
Europe, humbled to the dust by the °vigor and genius 
which had guided the councils of George the Second, 
now rejoiced in the prospect of a signal revenge. The 
time was approaching when our island, while strug- 10 
giing to keep down the United States of America, and 
pressed with a still nearer danger by the too just dis- 
contents of Ireland, was to be assailed by France, 
Spain, and Holland, and to be threatened by the 
armed neutrality of the Baltic ; when even our mari- 15 
time supremacy was to be in jeopardy ; when hostile 
fleets were to command the Straits of °Calpe and the 
Mexican Sea ; when the British flag was to be scarcely 
able to protect the British Channel. Great as were 
the faults of Hastings, it was happy for our country 20 
that at that conjuncture, the most terrible through 
which she has ever passed, he was the ruler of her 
Indian dominions. 

An attack by sea on Bengal was little to be appre- 
hended. The danger was that the European enemies 25 



80 MACAULAY'S ESSAY 

of England might form an alliance with some native 
power, might furnish that power with troops, arms, 
and ammunition, and might thus assail our posses- 
sions on the side of the land. It was chiefly from the 
5 °Mahrattas that Hastings anticipated danger. The 
original seat of that singular people was the wild 
range of hills which runs along the western coast of 
India. In the reign of Aurungzebe the inhabitants 
of those regions, led by the great Sevajee, began to 

10 descend on the possessions of their wealthier and less 
warlike neighbors. The energy, ferocity, and cunning 
of the Mahrattas, soon made them the most conspicu- 
ous among the new powers which were generated by 
the corruption of the decaying monarchy. At first 

15 they were only robbers. They soon rose to the dig- 
nity of conquerors. Half the provinces of the empire 
were turned into Mahratta principalities. Freebooters, 
sprung from low castes, and accustomed to menial 
employments, became mighty Rajahs. The Bonslas, 

20 at the head of a band of plunderers, occupied the vast 
region of Berar. The Guicowar, which is, being inter- 
preted, the Herdsmen, founded that dynasty which 
still reigns in Guzerat. The houses of Scfindia and 
Holkar waxed great in Malwa. One adventurous cap- 

25 tain made his nest on the impregnable rock of Gooti. 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 81 

Another became the lord of the thousand villages 
which are scattered among the green rice-fields of 
Tan j ore. 

That was the time, throughout India, of double gov- 
ernment. The form and the power were every where 5 
separated. The Mussulman nabobs who had become 
sovereign princes, the Vizier in Oude, and the Nizam 
at Hyderabad, still called themselves the viceroys of 
the house of Tamerlane. In the same manner the 
Mahratta states, though really independent of each 10 
other, pretended to be members of one empire. They 
all acknowledged, by words and ceremonies, the 
supremacy of the heir of Sevajee, a roi faineant who 
chewed bang and toyed with dancing girls in a state 
prison at Sattara, and of his Peshwa or mayor of the 15 
palace, a great hereditary magistrate, who kept a court 
with kingly state at Poonah, and whose authority was 
obeyed in the spacious provinces of Aurungabad and 
Bejapoor. 

Some months before war was declared in Europe the 20 
government of Bengal was alarmed by the news that a 
French adventurer, who passed for a man of quality, 
had arrived at Poonah. It was said that he had been 
received there with great distinction, that he had 
delivered to the Peshwa letters and presents from 25 



82 MACAULAY'S ESSAY 

Lewis the Sixteenth, and that a treaty, hostile to 
England, had been concluded between France and the 
Mahrattas. 

Hastings immediately resolved to strike the first 
5 blow. The title of the Peshwa was not undisputed. 
A portion of the Mahratta nation was favorable to 
a pretender. The Governor-General determined to 
espouse this pretender's interest, to move an army 
across the peninsula of India, and to form a close 

lo alliance with the chief of the house of Bonsla, who 
ruled Berar, and who, in power and dignity, was 
inferior to none of the Mahratta princes. 

The army had marched, and the negotiations with 
Berar were in progress, when a letter from the English 

15 consul at Cairo brought the news that war had been 
proclaimed both in London and Paris. All the meas- 
ures which the crisis required were adopted by Hast- 
ings without a moment's delay. The French factories 
in Bengal were seized. Orders were sent to Madras 

20 that Pondicherry should instantly be occupied. Near 
Calcutta, works were thrown up which were thought 
to render the approach of a hostile force impossible. 
A maritime establishment was formed for the defence 
of the river. Nine new battalions of sepoys were 

25 raised, and a corps of native artillery was formed out 



OaY WAIiEE2i HASTINGS 83 

of the hardy Lascars of the Bay of Bengal. Having 
made these arrangements, the Governor-General with 
calm confidence pronounced his presidency secure from 
all attack, unless the Mahrattas should march against 
it in conjunction with the French. 5 

The expedition which Hastings had sent westward 
was not so speedily or completely successful as most 
of his undertakings. The commanding officer pro- 
crastinated. The authorities at Bombay blundered. 
But the Governor-General persevered. A new com- lo 
mander repaired the errors of his predecessor. Several 
brilliant actions spread the military renown of the 
English through regions where no European flag had 
ever been seen. It is probable that, if a °new and 
more formidable danger had not compelled Hastings 15 
to change his whole policy, his plans respecting the 
Mahratta empire would have been carried into complete 
effect. 

The authorities in England had wisely sent out to 
Bengal, as commander of the forces and member of the 20 
Council, one of the most distinguished soldiers of that 
time. Sir Eyre Coote had, many years before, been 
conspicuous among the founders of the British empire 
in the East. At the council of war which preceded 
the battle of Plassey, he earnestly recommended, in 25 



84 MACAULAY'S ESSAY 

opposition to the majority, that daring course which, 
after some hesitation, was adopted, and which was 
crowned with such splendid success. He subsequently 
commanded in the south of India against the brave 

5 and unfortunate °Lally, gained the decisive battle of 
Wandewash over the French and their native allies, 
took Pondicherry, and made the English power supreme 
in the Carnatic. Since those great exploits near 
twenty years had elapsed. Coote had no longer the 

10 bodily activity which he had shown in earlier days ; 
nor was the vigor of his mind altogether unimpaired. 
He was capricious and fretful, and required much 
coaxing to keep him in good-humor. It must, we 
fear, be added that the love of money had grown upon 

15 him, and that he thought more about his allowances, 
and less about his duties, than might have been 
expected from so eminent a member of so noble a 
profession. Still he was perhaps the ablest officeD| 
that was then to be found in the British army. Among 

20 the native soldiers his name was great and his influ- 
ence unrivalled. Nor is he yet forgotten by them. 
Now and then a white-bearded old sepoy may still be 
found, who loves to talk of °Porto Novo and Pollilore. 
It is but a short time since one of those aged men 

25 came to present a memorial to an English officer, who 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 85 

holds one of the highest employments in India. A 
print of Coote hung in the room. The veteran recog- 
nized at once that face and figure which he had not 
seen for more than half a century, and, forgetting his 
salam to the living, halted, drew himself up, lifted his 5 
hand, and with solemn reverence paid his military 
obeisance to the dead. 

Coote, though he did not, like Barwell, vote con- 
stantly with the Governor-General, was by no means 
inclined to join in systematic opposition, and on most 10 
questions concurred with Hastings, who did his best, 
by assiduous courtship, and by readily granting the 
most exorbitant allowances, to gratify the strongest 
passions of the old soldier. 

It seemed likely at this time that a general recon- 15 
ciliation would put an end to the quarrels which had, 
during some years, weakened and disgraced the gov- 
ernment of Bengal. The dangers of the empire might 
well induce men of patriotic feeling, — and of patri- 
otic feeling neither Hastings nor Francis was desti- 20 
tute, — to forget private enmities, and to co-operate 
heartily for the general good. Coote had never been 
concerned in faction. Wheler was thoroughly tired 
of it. Barwell had made an ample fortune, and, 
though he had promised that he would not leave 25 



86 MACAULAY'S ESSAY 

Calcutta while his help was needed in Council, was 
most desirous to return to England, and exerted him- 
self to promote an arrangement which would set him 
at liberty. 
5 A compact was made, by which Francis agreed to 
desist from opposition, and Hastings engaged that the 
friends of Francis should be admitted to a fair share 
of the honors and emoluments of the service. During 
a few months after this treaty there was apparent 

10 harmony at the council-board. 

Harmony, indeed, was never more necessary ; for 
at this moment internal calamities, more formidable 
than war itself, menaced Bengal. The authors of the 
Regulating Act of 1773 had established two indepen- 

15 dent powers, the one judicial, the other political; and, 
with a carelessness scandalously common in English 
legislation, had omitted to define the limits of either. 
The judges took advantage of the indistinctness, and 
attempted to draw to themselves supreme authority, 

20 not only within Calcutta, but through the whole of 
the great territory subject to the Presidency of Fort 
William. There are few Englishmen who will not 
admit that the English law, in spite of modern im- 
provements, is neither so cheap nor so speedy as might 

25 be wished. Still, it is a system which has grown up 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 87 

among us. In some points, it lias been fashioned to 
suit our feelings ; in others, it has gradually fashioned 
our feelings to suit itself. Even to its worst evils we 
are accustomed; and therefore, though we may com- 
plain of them, they do not strike us with the horror 5 
and dismay which would be produced by a new griev- 
ance of smaller severity. In India the case is widely 
different. English law, transplanted to that country, 
has all the vices from which we suffer here ; it has 
them all in a far higher degree; and it has other vices, 10 
compared with which the worst vices from which we 
suffer are trifles. Dilatory here, it is far more dila- 
tory in a land where the help of an interpreter is 
needed by every judge and by every advocate. Costly 
here, it is far more costly in a land into which the 15 
legal practitioners must be imported from an immense 
distance. All English labor in India, from the labor 
of the Governor-General and the Commander-in-Chief, 
down to that of a groom or a watchmaker, must be 
paid for at a higher rate than at home. ISTo man will 20 
be banished, and banished to the torrid zone, for noth- 
ing. The rule holds good with respect to the legal 
profession. No English barrister will work, fifteen 
thousand miles from all his friends, with the ther- 
mometer at ninety-six in the shade, for the emolu- 25 



88 MACAULAY^S ESSAY 

merits which will content him in °chambers that 
overlook the Thames. Accordingly, the fees at Cal- 
cutta are about three times as great as the fees of 
Westminster Hall ; and this, though the people of. 

5 India are, beyond all comparison, poorer than the 
people of England. Yet the delay and the expense, 
grievous as they are, form the smallest part of the 
evil which English law, "imported without modifica- 
tions into India, could not fail to produce. The 

lo strongest feelings of our nature, honor, religion, female 
modesty, rose up against the innovation. Arrest on 
mesne process was the first step in most civil pro- 
ceedings ; and to a native of rauk arrest was not 
merely a restraint, but a foul personal indignity. 

15 Oaths, were required in every stage of every suit ; 
and the feeling of a Quaker about an oath is hardly 
stronger than that of a respectable native. That the 
apartments of a woman of quality should be entered 
by strange men, or that her face should be seen by 

20 them, are, in the East, intolerable outrages, outrages 
which are more dreaded than death, and which can be 
expiated only by the shedding of blood. To these 
outrages the most distinguished families of Bengal, 
Bahar, and Orissa, were now exposed. Imagine what 

25 the state of our own country would be, if a jurispru- 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 89 

dence were on a sudden introduced among us, wMcli 
should be to us what our jurisprudence was to our 
Asiatic subjects. Imagine what the state of our coun- 
try would be, if it were enacted that any man, by 
merely swearing that a debt was due to him, should 5 
acquire a right to insult the persons of men of the 
most honorable and sacred callings and of women of 
the most shrinking delicacy, to horsewhip a general 
officer, to put a bishop in the stocks, to treat ladies in 
the way which called forth the blow of Wat Tyler. 10 
Something like this was the effect of the attempt 
which the Supreme Court made to extend its jurisdic- 
tion over the whole of the °Company's territory. 

A reign of terror began, of terror heightened by 
mystery ; for even that which was endured was less 15 
horrible than that which was anticipated. No man 
knew what was next to be expected from this strange 
tribunal. It came from beyond the black water, as 
the people of India, with mysterious horror, call the 
sea. It consisted of judges not one of whom was 20 
familiar with the usages of the millions over whom 
they claimed boundless authority. Its records were 
kept in unknown characters ; its sentences were pro- 
nounced in unknown sounds. It had already collected 
round itself an army of the worst part of the native 25 



90 MAC AULA Y'S ESSAY 

population, informers, and false witnesses, and com- 
mon barrators, and agents of chicane, and above all, 
a banditti of bailiffs' followers, compared with whom 
the retainers of the worst English spunging-houses, in 
5 the worst times, might be considered as upright and 
tender-hearted. Many natives, highly considered 
among their countrymen, were seized, hurried wp to 
Calcutta, flung into the common gaol, not for any 
crime even imputed, not for any debt that had been 

10 proved, but merely as a precaution till their canse 
should come to trial. There were instances in which 
men of the most venerable dignity, persecuted without 
a cause by extortioners, died of rage and shame in the 
grip of the vile °alguazils of Impey. The harems of 

15 noble Mahommedans, sanctuaries respected in the 
East by governments which respected nothing else, 
were burst open by gangs of bailiffs. The Mussul- 
mans, braver and less accustomed to submission than 
the Hindoos, sometimes stood on their defence ; and 

20 there were instances in which they shed their blood in 
the doorway, while defending, sword in hand, the 
sacred apartments of their women. Nay, it seemed 
as if even the faint-hearted Bengalee, who had 
crouched at the feet of Surajah Dowlah, who had been 

25 mute during the administration of Vansittart, would 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 91 

at length find courage in despair. No Mahratta inva- 
sion had ever spread through the province such dis- 
may as this inroad of English lawyers. All the 
injustice of former oppressors, Asiatic and European, 
appeared as a blessing when compared with the justice 5 
of the Supreme Court. 

Every class of the population, English and native, 
with the exception of the ravenous pettifoggers who 
fattened on the misery and terror of an immense com- 
munity, cried out loudly against this fearful oppres- 10 
sion. But the judges were immovable. If a bailiff 
was resisted, they ordered the soldiers to be called 
out. If a servant of the Company, in conformity 
with the orders of the government, withstood the 
miserable catchpoles who, with Impey's writs in their 15 
hands, exceeded the insolence and rapacity of gang- 
robbers, he was flung into prison for a contempt. The 
lapse of sixty years, the virtue and wisdom of many 
eminent magistrates who have during that time ad- 
ministered justice in the Supreme Court, have not 20 
effaced from the minds of the people of Bengal the 
recollection of those evil days. 

The members of the government were, on this sub- 
ject, united as one man. Hastings had courted the 
judges, he had found them useful instruments; but 25 



92 MACAULAY^S ESS AT 

he was not disposed to make them his own masters, 

or the masters of India. His mind was large ; his 
knowledge of the native character most accurate. 
He saw that the system pursued by the Supreme 

5 Court was degrading to the government and ruinous 
to the people ; and he resolved to oppose it manfully. 
The consequence was, that the friendship, if that be 
the proper word for such a connection, which had 
existed between him and Impey, was for a time 

10 completely dissolved. The government placed itself 
firmly between the tyrannical tribunal and the peo- 
ple. The Chief Justice proceeded to the wildest 
excesses. The Governor-General and all the members 
of Council were served with writs, calling on them to 

15 appear before the King's justices, and to answer for 
their public acts. This was too much. Hastings, 
with just scorn, refused to obey the call, set at liberty 
the persons wrongfully detained by the Court, and 
took measures for resisting the outrageous proceed- 

20 ings of the sheriffs' officers, if necessary, by the sword. 
But he had in view another device which might pre- 
vent the necessity of an appeal to arms. He was 
seldom at a loss for an expedient; and he knew 
Impey well. The expedient, in this case, was a 

25 very simple one, neither more nor less than a bribe. 



ON WARREN HASTINGS ' 93 

Impey was, by act of Parliament, a judge, indepen- 
dent of the government of Bengal, and entitled to a . 
salary of eight thousand a year. Hastings proposed 
to make him also a judge in the Company's service, 
removable at the pleasure of tlie government of Ben- 5 
gal ; and to give him, in that capacity, about eight 
thousand a year more. It was understood that, in 
consideration of this new salary, Impey would desist 
from urging the high pretensions of his court. If he 
did urge these pretensions, the government could, at 10 
a moment's notice, eject him from the new place 
which had been created for him. The bargain was 
struck; Bengal was saved; an appeal to force was 
averted; and the Chief Justice was °rich, quiet, and 
infamous. 15 

Of Impey's conduct it is unnecessary to speak. It 
was of a piece with almost every part of his conduct 
that comes under the notice of history. No other 
such judge has dishonored the English ermine, since 
Jeffreys drank himself to death in the Tower. But 20 
we cannot agree with those who have blamed Hastings 
for this transaction. The case stood thus. The negli- 
gent manner in which the Regulating Act had been 
framed put it in the power of the Chief Justice to 
throw a great country into the most dreadful confusion. 25 



94 ' MACAULAY'S ESSAY 

He was determined to use his power to the utmost, 
unless he was paid to be still ; and Hastings consented 
to pay him. The necessity was to be deplored. It is 
also to be deplored that pirates should be able to exact 

5 ransom, by threatening to make their captives walk 
the plank. But to ransom a captive from pirates has 
always been held a humane and Christian act; and 
it would be absurd to charge the payer of the ransom 
with corrupting the virtue of the corsair. This, we 

10 seriously think, is a not unfair illustration of the rela- 
tive position of Impey, Hastings, and the people of 
India. Whether it was right in Impey to demand or 
to accept a price for powers which, if they really be- 
longed to him, he could not abdicate, which, if they 

15 did not belong to him, he ought never to have 
usurped, and which in neither case he could honestly 
sell, is one question. It is quite another question, 
whether Hastings was not right to give any sum, 
however large, to any man, however worthless, rather 

20 than either surrender millions of human beings to 
pillage, or rescue them by civil war. 

Francis strongly opposed this arrangement. It may, 
indeed, be suspected that jjersonal aversion to Impey 
was as strong a motive with Francis as regard for the 

25 welfare of the province. To a mind burning with 



ON WARREN HASTINGS ' 95 

resentment, it might seem better to leave Bengal to 
tlie oppressors than to redeem it by enriching them. 
It is not improbable, on the other hand, that Hastings 
may have been the more willing to resort to an expe- 
dient agreeable to the Chief Justice, because that 5 
high functionary had already been so serviceable, and 
might, when existing dissensions were composed, be 
serviceable again. 

But it was not on this point alone that Francis was 
now opposed to Hastings. The peace between them 10 
proved to be only a short and hollow truce, during 
which their mutual aversion was constantly becoming 
stronger. At length an explosion took place. Hast- 
ings publicly charged Francis with having deceived 
him, and with having induced Barwell to quit the 15 
service by insincere promises. Then came a dispute, 
such as frequently arises even between honorable men 
when they may make important agreements by mere 
verbal communication. An impartial historian will 
probably be of opinion that they had misunderstood 20 
each other ; but their minds were so much embittered 
that they imputed to each other nothing less than delib- 
erate villany. " I do not," said Hastings, in a minute 
recorded on the Consultations of the Government, " I 
do not trust to Mr. Francis's promises of candor, con- 25 



96 MAOAULAY^S ESS AT 

vinced that he is incapable of it. I judge of his public 
conduct by his private, which I have found to be void 
of truth and honor." After the Council had risen, 
Francis put a challenge into the Governor-General's 

5 hand. It was instantly accepted. They met, and 
fired. Francis was shot through the body. He was 
carried to a neighboring house, where it appeared that 
the wound, though severe, was not mortal. Hastings 
inquired repeatedly after his enemy's health, and pro- 

lo posed to call on him ; but Francis coldly declined 
the visit. He had a proper sense, he said, of the 
Governor-General's politeness, but could not consent 
to any private interview. They could meet only at 
the council-board. 

15 In a very short time it was made signally manifest 
to how great a danger the Governor-General had, on 
this occasion, exposed his country. A crisis arrived 
with which he, and he alone, was competent to deal. 
It is not too much to say that, if he had been taken 

20 from the head of affairs, the years 1780 and 1781 
would have been as fatal to our power in Asia as to 
our power in America. 

The Mahrattas had been the chief objects of appre- 
hension to Hastings. The measures which he had 

25 adopted for the purpose of breaking their power, had 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 97 

at first been frustrated by the errors of those whom 
he was compelled to employ; but his perseverance 
and ability seemed likely to be crowned with success, 
when a far more formidable danger showed itself in a 
distant quarter. 5 

° About thirty years before this time, a Mahommedan 
soldier had begun to distinguish himself in the wars 
of Southern India. His education had been neglected ; 
his extraction was humble. His father had been a 
petty officer of revenue ; his grandfather a wandering lo 
dervise. But though thus meanly descended, though 
ignorant even of the alphabet, the adventurer had no 
sooner been placed at the head of a body of troops 
than he approved himself a man born for conquest 
and command. Among the crowd of chiefs who were 15 
struggling for a share of India, none could compare 
with him in the qualities of the captain and the states- 
man. He became a general ; he became a sovereign. 
Out of the fragments of old principalities, which had 
gone to pieces in the general wreck, he formed for 20 
himself a great, compact, and vigorous empire. Tha,t 
empire he ruled with the ability, severity, and vigi- 
lance of Lewis the Eleventh. Licentious in his pleas- 
ures, implacable in his revenge, he had yet enlargement 
of mind enough to perceive how much the prosperity 25 

H 



98 MACAULAY'S ESS A J 

of subjects adds to the strength of governments. He 
was an oppressor ; but he had at least the merit of 
protecting his people against all oppression except his 
own. He was now in extreme old age ; but his intellect 

5 was as clear, and his spirit as high, as in the prime 
of manhood. Such was the great °Hyder Ali, the 
founder of the Mahommedan kingdom of Mysore, and 
the most formidable enemy with whom the English 
conquerors of India have ever had to contend. 

10 Had Hastings been governor of Madras, Hyder 
would have been either made a friend, or vigorously 
encountered as an enemy. Unhappily the English 
authorities in the south provoked their powerful 
neighbor's hostility, without being prepared to repel 

15 it. On a sudden, an army of ninety thousand men, 
far superior in discipline and efficiency to any other 
native force that could be found in India, came pour- 
ing through those wild passes which, worn by moun- 
tain torrents, and dark with jungle, lead down from 

20 the table-land of Mysore to the plains of the Carnatic. 
This great army was accompanied by a hundred pieces 
of cannon ; and its movements were guided by many 
French officers, trained in the best military schools of 
Europe. 

25 Hyder was everywhere triumphant. The sepoys in 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 99 

many British garrisons flung down their arms. Some 
forts were surrendered by treachery and some by de- 
spair. In a few days the whole open country north of 
the Coleroon had submitted. The English inhabitants 
of Madras could already see by night, from the top of 5 
Mount St. Thomas, the western sky reddened by a 
vast semicircle of blazing villages. The white villas, 
to which our countrymen retire after the daily labors 
of government and of trade, when the cool evening 
breeze springs up from the bay, were now left without 10 
inhabitants; for bands of the fierce horsemen of 
Mysore had already been seen prowling among the 
tulip-trees and near the gay verandas. Even the town 
was not thought secure, and the British merchants and 
public functionaries made haste to crowd themselves 15 
behind the cannon of Fort St. George. 

There were the means, indeed, of assembling an 
army which might have defended the presidency, 
and even driven the invader back to his mountains. 
Sir Hector Munro was at the head of one considerable 20 
force; Baillie was advancing with another. United, 
they might have presented a formidable front even 
to such an enemy as Hyder. But the English com- 
manders, neglecting those fundamental rules of the 
militai^il-fcof which the propriety is obvious even to 25 



100 MACAULAY'S ESSAY 

men who have never received a military education, 
deferred tlieir junction, and were separately attacked. 
Baillie's detachment was destroyed. Munro was forced 
to abandon his baggage, to °fling his guns into the tanks, 

5 and to save himself by a retreat which might be called 
a flight. In three weeks from the commencement of 
the war, the British empire in Southern India had been 
brought to the verge of ruin. Only a few fortified 
places remained to us. The glory of our arms had 

10 departed. It was known that a great Erench expedi- 
tion might soon be expected on the coast of Coromandel. 
England, beset by enemies on every side, was in no 
condition to protect such remote dependencies. 

Then it was that the fertile genius and serene cour- 

15 age of Hastings achieved their most signal triumph. 
A swift ship, flying before the south-west monsoon, 
brought the evil tidings in few days to Calcutta. In 
twenty-four hours the Governor-General had framed 
a complete plan of policy adapted to the altered state 

20 of affairs. The struggle with Hyder was a struggle 
for life and death. All minor objects must be sacri- 
ficed to the preservation of the Carnatic. The disputes 
with the Mahrattas must be accommodated. A large 
military force and a supply of money must be instantly 

25 sent to Madras. But even these measures^ould be 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 101 

insufficient, unless the war, hitherto so grossly mis- 
managed, were placed under the direction of a vigor- 
ous mind. It was no time for trifling. Hastings 
determined to resort to an extreme exercise of power, 
to suspend the incapable governor of Fort St. George, 5 
to send Sir Eyre Coote to oppose Hyder, and to intrust 
that distinguished general with the whole administra- 
tion of the war. 

In spite of the sullen opposition of Francis, who had 
now recovered from his wound, and had returned to 10 
the Council, the Governor-General's wise and firm 
policy was approved by the majority of the board. 
The reinforcements were sent off with great expedi- 
tion, and reached Madras before the French armament 
arrived in the Indian seas. Coote, broken by age and 15 
disease, was no longer the Coote of Wandewash; but 
he was still a resolute and skilful commander. The 
progress of Hyder was arrested ; and in a few months 
the great victory of Porto Novo retrieved the honor 
of the English arms. 20 

In the mean time Francis had returned to England, 
and Hastings was now left perfectly unfettered. 
Wheler had gradually been relaxing in his opposi- 
tion, and, after the departure of his vehement and 
implacable colleague, co-operated heartily with the 25 



102 MACAULAY'S ESSAY 

Governor-General, whose influence over the British 
in India, always great, had, by the vigor and success 
of his recent measures, been considerably^ increased. 
But, though the difficulties arising from factions 
5 within the Council were at an end, another class of 
difficulties had become more pressing than ever. The 
financial embarrassment was extreme. Hastings had 
to find the means, not only of carrying on the govern- 
ment of Bengal, but of maintaining a most costly war 

10 against both Indian and European enemies in the 
Carnatic, and of making remittances to England. A 
few years before this time he had obtained relief by 
plundering the Mogul and enslaving the Rohillas ; nor 
were the resources of his fruitful mind by any means 

15 exhausted. 

His first design was on °Benares, a city which in 
wealth, population, dignity, and sanctity, was among 
the foremost of Asia. It was commonly believed that 
half a million of human beings was crowded into that 

20 labyrinth of lofty alleys, rich with shrines, and mina- 
rets, and balconies, and carved oriels, to which the 
sacred apes clung by hundreds. The traveller could 
scarcely make his way through the press of holy 
mendicants and not less holy bulls. The broad and 

25 stately flights of steps which descended from these 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 103 

swarming haunts to the bathing-places along the 
Ganges were worn every day by the footsteps of an 
innumerable multitude of worshippers. The schools 
and temples drew crowds of pious Hindoos from every 
province where the Brahminical faith was known. 5 
Hundreds of devotees came thither every month to 
die : for it was believed that a peculiarly happy fate 
awaited the man who should pass from the sacred city 
into the sacred river. Nor was superstition the only 
motive which allured strangers to that great metrop- 10 
olis. Commerce had as many pilgrims as religion. 
All along the shores of the venerable stream lay great 
fleets of vessels laden with rich merchandise. From 
the looms of Benares went forth the most delicate 
silks that adorned the balls of St. James's and of 15 
Versailles ; and in the bazaars the muslins of Bengal 
and the sabres of Oude were mingled with the jewels 
of Golconda and the shawls of Cashmere. This rich 
capital, and the surrounding tract, had long been under 
the immediate rule of a Hindoo prince, who rendered 20 
homage to the Mogul emperors. During the great 
anarchy of India, the °lords of Benares became inde- 
pendent of the court of Delhi, but were compelled to 
submit to the authority of the Nabob of Oude. Op- 
pressed by this formidable neighbor, they invoked the 25 



104 MACAULAY'S ESSAY 

protection of the English. The English protection was 
given; and at length the Nabob Vizier, by a solemn 
treaty, ceded all his rights over Benares to the Com- 
pany. From that time the Rajah was the vassal of 
5 the government of Bengal, acknowledged its suprem- 
acy, and engaged to send an annual tribute to Fort 
William. This tribute Cheyte Sing, the reigning 
prince, had paid with strict punctuality. 

About the precise nature of the legal relation be- 

10 tween the Company and the Rajah of Benares, there 
has been much warm and acute controversy. On 
the one side, it has been maintained that Cheyte Sing 
was merely a great subject on whom the superior 
power had a right to call for aid in the necessities of 

15 the empire. On the other side, it has been contended 
that he was an independent prince, that the only claim 
which the Company had upon him was for a fixed 
tribute, and that, while the fixed tribute was regularly 
paid, as it assuredly was, the English had no more 

20 right to exact any further contribution from him than 
to demand subsidies from Holland or Denmark. Noth- 
ing is easier than to find precedents and analogies in 
favor of either view. 

Our own impression is that neither view is correct. 

25 It was too much the habit of English politicians to 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 105 

take it for granted that there was in India a known 
and definite constitution by which, questions of this 
kind were to be decided. The truth is that, during 
the interval which elapsed between the °fall of the 
house of Tamerlane and the establishment of the 5 
British ascendency, there was no such constitution. 
The old order of things had passed away ; the new 
order of things was not yet formed. All was transi- 
tion, confusion, obscurity. Every body kept his head 
as he best might, and scrambled for whatever he 10 
could get. There have been similar seasons in Europe. 
The time of the dissolution of the Carlovingian empire 
is an instance. Who would think of seriously dis- 
cussing the question, what extent of pecuniary aid 
and of obedience Hugh Capet had a constitutional 15 
right to demand from the Duke of Britanny or the 
Duke of ]S"ormandy ? The words " constitutional 
right " had, in that state of society, no meaning. If 
Hugh Capet laid hands on all the possessions of the 
Duke of Normandy, this might be unjust and im- 20 
moral ; but it would not be illegal, in the sense in 
which the ordinances of Charles the Tenth were illegal. 
If, on the other hand, the Duke of Normandy made 
war on Hugh Capet, this might be unjust and im- 
moral; but it would not be illegal, in the sense in 25 



106 MAC AUL AY'S ESSAY 

which the expedition of Prince Louis Bonaparte was 
illegal. 

Very similar to this the state of India sixty years 
ago. Of the existing governments not a single one 
5 could lay claim to legitimacy, or could plead any other 
title than recent occupation. There was scarcely a 
province in which the real sovereignty and the nom- 
inal sovereignty were not disjoined. Titles and 
forms were still retained which implied that the heir 

10 of Tamerlane was an absolute ruler, and that the 
Nabobs of the provinces were his lieutenants. In 
reality, he was a captive. The Nabobs were in some 
places independent princes. In other places, as in 
Bengal and the Carnatic, they had, like their master, 

15 become mere phantoms, and the Company was su- 
preme. Among the Mahrattas, again, the heir of 
Sevajee still kept the title of Eajah; but he was a 
prisoner, and his prime minister, the Peshwa, had 
become the hereditary chief of the state. The Peshwa, 

20 in his turn, was fast sinking into the same degraded 
situation to which he had reduced the Rajah. Lt was, 
we believe, impossible to find, from the Himalayas 
to Mysore, a single government which was at once 
°a government de facto and a government de jur^e, 

25 which possessed the physical means of making itself 



OiV WARREN HASTINGS 107 

feared by its neighbors and subjects, and which, had 
at the same time the authority derived from law and 
long prescription. 

Hastings clearly discerned, what was hidden from 
most of his contemporaries, that such a state of things 5 
gave immense advantages to a ruler of great talents and 
few scruples. In every international question that 
could arise, he had his option between the de facto 
ground and the dejure ground; and the probability was 
that one of those grounds would sustain any claim that 10 
it might be convenient for him to make, and enable him 
to resist any claim made by others. In every contro- 
versy, accordingly, he resorted to the plea which 
suited his immediate purpose, without troubling 
himself in the least about consistency ; and thus he 15 
scarcely ever failed to find what, to persons of short 
memories and scanty information, seemed to be a 
justification for what he wanted to do. Sometimes 
the Nabob of Bengal is a shadow, sometimes a mon- 
arch. Sometimes the Vizier is a mere deputy, some- 20 
times an independent potentate. If it is expedient 
for the Company to show some legal title to the 
revenues of Bengal, the grant under the seal of 
the Mogul is brought forward as an instrument of 
the highest authority. When the Mogul asks for the 25 



108 MACAU LAY'S ESSAY 

rents which were reserved to him by that very grant, 
he is told that he is a mere pageant, that the English 
power rests on a very different foundation from a 
charter given by him, that he is welcome to play at 

5 royalty as long as he likes, but that he must expect no 
tribute from the real masters of India. 

It is true that it was in the power of others, as 
well as of Hastings, to practise this legerdemain ; but 
in the controversies of governments, sophistry is of 

10 little use unless it be backed by power. There is a 
principle which Hastings was fond of asserting in the 
strongest terms, and on which he acted with unde- 
viating steadiness. It is a principle which, we must 
own, though it may be grossly abused, can hardly be 

15 disputed in the present state of public law. It is this, 
that where an ambiguous question arises between two 
governments, there is, if they cannot agree, no appeal 
except to force, and that the opinion of the stronger 
must prevail. °Almost every question was ambiguous 

20 in India. The English government was the strongest 
in India. The consequences are obvious. The Eng- 
lish government might do exactly what it chose. 

The English government now chose to wring money 
out of Cheyte Sing. It had formerly been convenient 

25 to treat him as a sovereign prince ; it was now con- 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 109 

venient to treat him as a subject. Dexterity inferior 
to that of Hastings could easily find, in the general 
chaos of laws and customs, arguments for either course. 
Hastings wanted a great supply. It was known that 
Cheyte Sing had a large revenue, and it was suspected 5 
that he had accumulated a treasure. Nor was he a 
favorite at Calcutta. He had, when the Governor-Gen- 
eral was in great difficulties, courted the favor of Fran- 
cis and Clavering. Hastings who, less perhaps from 
evil passions than from policy, seldom left an injury 10 
unpunished, was not sorry that the fate of Cheyte 
Sing should teach neighboring princes the same lesson 
which the fate of Nuncomar had already impressed on 
the inhabitants of Bengal. 

In 1778, on the first breaking out of the war with 15 
France, Cheyte Sing was called upon to pay, in addi- 
tion to his fixed tribute, an extraordinary contribution 
of fifty thousand pounds. In 1779, an equal sum was 
exacted. In 1780, the demand was renewed. Cheyte 
Sing, in the hope of obtaining some indulgence, secretly 20 
offered the Governor-General a bribe of twenty thou- 
sand pounds. Hastings took the money, and his ene- 
mies have maintained that he took it intending to keep 
it. He certainly concealed the transaction, for a time, 
both from the Council in Bengal and from the Direc- 25 



110 MACAULAY'S ESSAY 

tors at home ; nor did he ever give any satisfactory 
reason for the concealment. Public spirit, or the fear 
of detection, at last determined him to withstand the 
temptation. He paid over the bribe to the Company's 

5 treasury, and insisted that the Rajah should instantly 
comply with the demands of the English government. 
The E-ajah, after the fashion of his countrymen, shuf- 
fled, solicited, and pleaded poverty. The grasp of 
Hastings was not to be so eluded. He added to the 

10 requisition another ten thousand pounds as a fine for 
delay, and sent troops to exact the money. 

The money was paid. But this was not enough. 
The late events in the south of India had increased 
the financial embarrassments of the Company. Hast- 

15 ings was determined to plunder Cheyte Sing, and, for 
that end, to fasten a quarrel on him. Accordingly, the 
Rajah was now required to keep a body of cavalry for 
the service of the British government. He objected 
and evaded. This was exactly what the Governor- 

20 General wanted. He had now a pretext for treating 
the wealthiest of his vassals as a criminal. "I re- 
solved," — these are the words of Hastings himself, 
— " to draw from his guilt the means of relief of the 
Company's distresses, to make him pay largely for 

25 his pardon, or to exact a severe vengeance for past 



OJ^ WARREK HASTINGS 111 

delinquency." The plan was simply this, to demand 
larger and larger contributions till the Rajah should 
be driven to remonstrate, then to call his remon- 
strance a crime, and to punish him by confiscating all 
his possessions. 5 

Cheyte Sing was in the greatest dismay. He offered 
two hundred thousand pounds to propitiate the Brit- 
ish government. But Hastings replied that nothing- 
less than half a million would be accepted. Nay, he 
began to think of selling Benares to Oude, as he had lo 
formerly sold Allahabad and E-ohilcund. The matter 
was one which could not be well managed at a dis- 
tance ; and Hastings resolved to visit Benares. 

Gheyte Sing received his liege lord with every mark 
of reverence, came near sixty miles, with his guards, 15 
to meet and escort the illustrious visitor, and ex- 
pressed his deep concern at the displeasure of the 
English. He even took off his turban, and laid it in 
the lap of Hastings, a gesture which in India marks 
the most profound submission and devotion. Hast- 20 
ings behaved with cold and repulsive severity. Hav- 
ing arrived at Benares, he sent to the Rajah a paper 
containing the demands of the government of Bengal. 
The Rajah, in reply, attempted to clear himself from 
the accusations brought against him. Hastings, who 25 



112 MACAULAY'S ESSAY 

wanted money and not excuses, was not to be put off 
by the ordinary artifices of Eastern negotiation. He 
instantly ordered the Rajah to be arrested and placed 
under the custody of two companies of sepoys. 

5 In taking these strong measures, Hastings scarcely 
showed his usual judgment. It is possible that, hav- 
ing had little opportunity of personally observing any 
part of the population of India, except the Bengalees, 
he was not fully aware of the difference between their 

10 character and that of the tribes which inhabit the 
upper provinces. He was now in a land far m.ore 
favorable to the vigor of the human frame than the 
Delta of the Ganges ; in a land fruitful of soldiers, who 
have been found worthy to follow English battalions to 

15 the charge and into the breach. The Kajah was popu- 
lar among his subjects. His administration had been 
mild; and the prosperity of the district which he 
governed presented a striking contrast to the depressed 
state of Bahar under our rule, and a still more strik- 

20 ing contrast to the misery of the provinces which 
were cursed by the tyranny of the Nabob Vizier. The 
national and religious prejudices with which the Eng- 
lish were regarded throughout India were peculiarly 
intense in the metropolis of the Brahminical supersti- 

25 tion. It can therefore scarcely be doubted that the 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 113 

Grovernor-General, before lie outraged the dignity of 
Cheyte Sing by an arrest, ought to have assembled a 
force capable of bearing down all opposition. This 
had not been done. The handful of sepoys who 
attended Hastings would probably have been sufficient 5 
to overawe Moorshedabad, or the Black Town of Cal- 
cutta. But they were unequal to a conflict with the 
hardy rabble of Benares. The streets surrounding 
the palace were filled with an immense multitude, of 
whom a large proportion, as is usual in Upper India, 10 
wore arms. The tumult became a fight, and the fight 
a massacre. The English officers defended them- 
selves with desperate courage against overwhelming 
numbers, and fell, as became them, sword in hand. 
The sepoys were butchered. The gates were forced. 15 
The captive prince, neglected by his jailers during the 
confusion, discovered an outlet which opened on the 
precipitous bank of the Ganges, let himself down to 
the water by a string made of the turbans of his attend- 
ants, found a boat, and escaped to the opposite shore. 20 

If Hastings had, by indiscreet violence, brought him- 
self into a difficult and perilous situation, it is only just 
to acknowledge that he extricated himself with even 
more than his usual ability and presence of mind. 
He had only fifty men with him. The building in 25 



114 MACAULAY'S ESSAY 

which he had taken up his residence was on every 
side blockaded by the insurgents. But his fortitude 
remained unshaken. 'The Rajah from the other side 
of the river sent apologies and liberal offers. They 

5 were not even answered. Some subtle and enterpris- 
ing men were found who undertook to pass through 
the throng of enemies, and to convey the intelligence 
of the late events to the English cantonments. It is the 
fashion of the natives of India to wear large earrings 

10 of gold. When they travel, the rings are laid aside, 
lest the precious m.etal should tempt some gang of 
robbers ; and, in place of the ring, a quill or a roll 
of paper is inserted in the orifice to prevent it from 
closing. Hastings placed in the ears of his messengers 

15 letters rolled up in the smallest compass. Some of 
these letters were addressed to the commanders of the 
English troops. One was written to assure his wife 
of his safety. One was to the envoy whom he had 
sent to negotiate with the Mahrattas. Instructions 

20 for the negotiation were needed ; and the Governor- 
General framed them in that situation of extreme 
danger, with as much composure as if he had been 
writing in his palace at Calcutta. 

Things, however, were not yet at the worst. An 

25 English officer of more spirit than judgment, eager to 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 115 

distinguish himselfj made a premature attack on the 
insurgents beyond the river. His troops were entan- 
gled in narrow streets, and assailed by a furious pop- 
ulation. He fell, with many of his men; and the 
survivors were forced to retire. 5 

This event produced the effect which has never 
failed to follow every check, however slight, sus- 
tained in India by the English arms. For hundreds 
of miles round, the whole country was in commotion. 
The entire population of the district of Benares took lo 
arms. The fields were abandoned by the husband- 
men, who thronged to defend their prince. The infec- 
tion spread to Oude. The oppressed people of that 
province rose up against the Nabob Vizier, refused to 
pay their imposts, and put the revenue officers to 15 
flight. Even Bahar was ripe for revolt. The hopes 
of Cheyte Sing began to rise. Instead of imploring 
mercy in the humble style of a vassal, he began to 
talk the language of a conqueror, and threatened, it 
was said, to swee p the white usurpers out of the land. 20 
But the English troops were now assembling fast. 
The officers, and even the private men, regarded the 
Governor-General with enthusiastic attachment, and 
flew to his aid with an alacrity which, as he boasted, had 
never been shown on any other occasion. Major Pop- 25 



116 MACAULAY'S ESSAY 

ham, a brave and skilful soldier, who had highly dis- 
tinguished himself in the Mahratta war, and in whom 
the Governor-General reposed the greatest conhdence, 
took the command. The tumultuary army of the 
5 Rajah was put to rout. His fastnesses were stormed. 
In a few hours, above thirty thousand men left his 
standard, and returned to their ordinary avocations. 
The unhappy prince fled from his country for ever. 
His fair domain was added to the British dominions. 

10 One of his relations indeed was appointed rajah; but 
the Rajah of Benares was henceforth to be, like the 
Nabob of Bengal, a mere pensioner. 

By this revolution, an addition of two hundred 
thousand pounds a year was made to the revenues of 

15 the Company. But the immediate relief was not as 
great as had been expected. The treasure laid up by 
Cheyte Sing had been popularly estimated at a million 
sterling. It turned out to be about a fourth part of 
that sum; and, such as it was, it was seized by the 

20 army, and divided as prize-money. 

Disappointed in his expectations from Benares, 
Hastings was more violent than he would otherwise 
have been, in his dealings with Oude. Sujah Dowlah 
had long been dead. His son and successor, Asaph-ul- 

25 Dowlah, was one of the weakest and most vicious even 



OiV^ WARREN HASTINGS 111 

of Eastern princes. His life was divided between 
torpid repose and the most odious forms of sensuality. 
In Ms court there was boundless waste, throughout 
his dominions wretchedness and disorder. He had 
been, under the skilful management of the English 5 
government, gradually sinking from the rank of an 
independent prince to that of a vassal of the Company. 
It was only by the help of a British brigade that he 
could be secure from the aggressions of neighbors who 
despised his weakness, and from the vengeance of sub- 10 
jects who detested his tyranny. A brigade was fur- 
nished ; and he engaged to defray the charge of paying 
and maintaining it. From that time his independence 
was at an end. Hastings was not a man to lose the 
advantage which he had thus gained. The Nabob soon 15 
began to complain of the burden which he had under- 
taken to bear. His revenues, he said, were falling 
off; his servants were unpaid 5 he could no longer 
support the expense of the arrangement which he had 
sanctioned. Hastings would not listen to these repre- 20 
sentations. The Vizier, he said, had invited the 
government of Bengal to send him troops and had 
promised to pay for them. The troops had been sent. 
How long the troops were to remain in Oude was a 
matter not settled by the treaty. It remained, there- 25 



118 MACAVLAY'S ESSAY 

fore, to be settled between the contracting parties. 
But the contracting parties differed. Who then must 
decide ? The stronger. 

Hastings also argued that, if the English force was 
5 withdrawn, Oude would certainly become a prey to 
anarchy, and would probably be overrun by a Mah- 
ratta army. That the finances of Oude were embar- 
rassed he admitted. But he contended, not without 
reason, that the embarrassment was to be attributed 

TO to the incapacity and vices of Asaph-ul-Dowlah him- 
self, and that, if less were spent on the troops, the 
only effect would be that more would be squandered 
on worthless favorites. 

Hastings had intended, after settling the affairs of 

15 Benares, to visit Lucknow, and there to confer with 
Asaph-ul-Dowlah. But the obsequious courtesy of 
the Nabob Vizier prevented this visit. With a small 
train he hastened to meet the Governor-General. An 
interview took place in the fortress which, from the 

20 crest of the precipitous rock of Chunar, looks doAvn 
on the waters of the Ganges. 

At first sight it might appear impossible that the 
negotiations should come to an amicable close. Hast- 
ings wanted an extraordinary supply of money. 

25 Asaph-ul-Dowlah wanted to obtain a remission of 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 119 

what he already owed. Such a difference seemed to 
admit of no compromise. There was, however, one 
course satisfactory to both sides, one course by which 
it was possible to relieve the finances both of Oude 
and of Bengal ; and that course was adopted. It was 5 
simply this, that the Governor-General and the Nabob 
Vizier should join to rob a third party ; and the third 
party whom they determined to rob was the parent of 
one of the robbers. 

The mother of the late Nabob, and his wife, who 10 
was the mother of the present Nabob, were known as 
the Begums or Princesses of Oude. They had pos- 
sessed great influence over Sujah Dowlah, and had, at 
his death, been left in possession of a splendid °dota- 
tiou. The domains of which they received the rents 15 
and administered the government were of wide extent. 
The treasure hoarded by the late Nabob, a treasure 
which was popularly estimated at near three millions 
sterling, was in their hands. They continued to 
occupy his. favorite palace at Fyzabad, the Beautiful 20 
Dwelling; while Asaph-ul-Dowlah held his court in 
the stately Lucknow, which he had built for himself 
on the shores of the Goomti, and had adorned with 
noble mosques and colleges. 

Asaph-ul-Dowlah had already extorted considerable 25 



120 MAC A UL AY'S ESSAY 

sums from his mother. She had at length appealed 
to the English ; and the English had interfered. A 
solemn compact had been made, by which she con- 
sented to give her son some pecuniary assistance, and 

5 he in his turn promised never to commit any further 
invasion of her rights. This compact was formally 
guaranteed by the government of Bengal. But times 
had changed ; money was wanted ; and the power 
which had given the guarantee was not ashamed to 

10 instigate the s^Doiler to excesses such that even he 
shrank from them. 

It was necessary to find some pretext for a confis- 
cation inconsistent, not merely with plighted faith, 
not merely with the ordinary rules of humanity and 

15 justice, but also with that great law of filial piety 
which, even in the wildest tribes of savages, even in 
those more degraded communities which wither under 
the influence of a corrupt half -civilization, retains a 
certain authority over the human mind. A pretext 

20 was the last thing that Hastings was likely to want. 
The insurrection at Benares had produced disturb- 
ances in Oude. These disturbances it was convenient 
to impute to the Princesses. Evidence for the impu- 
tation there was scarcely any ; unless reports wander- 

25 ing from one mouth to another, and gaining something 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 121 

by every transmission, may be called evidence. The 
accused were furnished with no charge ; they were 
permitted to make no defence ; for the Governor-Gen- 
eral wisely considered that, if he tried them, he might 
not be able to find a ground for plundering them. It 5 
was agreed between him and the Nabob Vizier that 
the noble ladies should, by a sweeping act of confisca- 
tion, be stripped of their domains and treasures for 
the benefit of the Company, and that the sums thus 
obtained should be accepted by the government of 10 
Bengal in satisfaction of its claims on the government 
of Oude. 

While Asaph-ul-Dowlah was at Chunar, he was 
completely subjugated by the clear and commanding 
intellect of the English statesman. But, when they 15 
had separated, the Vizier began to reflect with uneasi- 
ness on the engagements into which he had entered. 
His mother and grandmother protested and implored. 
His heart, deeply corrupted by absolute power and 
licentious pleasures, yet not naturally unfeeling, failed 20 
him in this crisis. Even the English resident at 
Lucknow, though hitherto devoted to Hastings, shrank 
from extreme measures. But the Governor-General 
was inexorable. He wrote to the resident in terms 
of the greatest severity, and declared that, if the 25 



122 MACAULAY'S ESSAY 

spoliation which had been agreed upon were not 
instantly carried into effect, he would himself go to 
Lucknow, and do that from which feebler minds re- 
coil with dismay. The resident, thus menaced, waited 

5 on his Highness, and insisted that the treaty of 
Chunar should be carried into full and immediate 
effect. Asaph-ul-Dowlah yielded, making at the same 
time a solemn protestation that he yielded to com- 
pulsion. The lands were resumed; but the treasure 

10 was not so easily obtained. It was necessary to use 
violence. A body of the Company's troops marched 
to Fyzabad, and forced the gates of the palace. The 
Princesses were confined to their own apartments. Bat 
still they refused to submit. Some more stringent 

15 mode of coercion was to be found. A mode was found 
of which, even at this distance of time, we cannot 
speak without shame and sorrow. 

There were at Fyzabad two ancient men, belonging 
to that unhappy class which a practice, of immemorial 

20 antiquity in the East, has excluded from the pleasures 
of love and from the hope of posterity. It has always 
been held in Asiatic courts that beings thus estranged 
from sympathy with their kind are those whom princes 
may most safely trust. Sujah Dowlah had been of 

25 this opinion. He had given his entire coufidence to 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 123 

the two eunuclis ; and after his death they remained 
at the head of the household of his widow. 

These men were, by the orders of the British gov- 
ernmentj seized, imprisoned, ironed, starved almost to 
death, in order to extort money from the Princesses. 5 
After they had been two months in confinement, 
their health gave way. They implored permission to 
take a little exercise in the garden of their prison. 
The officer who was in charge of them stated that, if 
they were allowed this indulgence, there was not the 10 
smallest chance of their escaping, and that their irons 
really added nothing to the security of the custody in 
which" they were kept. He did not understand the 
plan of his superiors. Their object in these inflictions 
was not security, but torture ; and all mitigation was 15 
refused. Yet this was not the worst. It was resolved 
by an English government that these two infirm old 
men should be delivered to the tormentors. For that 
purpose they were removed to Lucknow. What 
horrors their dungeon there witnessed can only be 20 
guessed. But there remains on the records of Parlia- 
ment, this letter, written by a British resident to a 
British soldier. 

"Sir, The Nabob having determined to inflict cor- 
poral punishment upon the prisoners under your 25 



124 MACAULAY'S ESSAY 

guard, this is to desire that his officers, when they 
shall come, may have free access to the prisoners, and 
be permitted to do with them as they shall see 
proper." 

5 While these barbarities were perpetrated at Luck- 
now, the Princesses were still under duress at Fyzabad. 
Food was allowed to enter their apartments only in 
such scanty quantities that their female attendants were 
in danger of perishing with hunger. Month after 

lo month this cruelty continued, till at length, after 
twelve hundred thousand pounds had been wrung out 
of the Princesses, Hastings began to think that he 
had really got to the bottom of their coffers, and that 
no rigor could extort more. Then at length the 

15 wretched men who were detained at Lucknow re- 
gained their liberty. When their irons were knocked 
off, and the doors of their prisons opened, their quiver- 
ing lips, the tears which ran down their cheeks, and 
the thanksgivings which they poured forth to the com- 

20 mon Father of Mussulmans and Christians, melted 
even the stout hearts of the English warriors who 
stood by. 

But we must not forget to do justice to Sir Elijah 
Impey's conduct on this occasion. It was not indeed 

25 easy for him to intrude himself into a business so 



OiV^ WARREN HASTINGS 125 

entirely alien from all his official duties. But there 
was something inexpressibly alluring, we must sup- 
pose, in the peculiar rankness of the infamy which 
was then to be got at Lucknow. He hurried thither 
as fast as relays of palanquin-bearers could carry him. 5 
A crowd of people came before him with affidavits 
against the Begums, ready drawn in their hands. 
Those affidavits he did not read. Some of them, 
indeed, he could not read ; for they were in the 
dialects of Northern India, and no interpreter was 10 
employed. He administered the oath to the deponents 
with all possible expedition, and asked not a single 
question, not even whether they had perused the 
statements to which they swore. This work per- 
formed, he got again into his palanquin, and posted 15 
back to Calcutta, to be in time for the opening of 
term. The cause was one which, by his own confes- 
sion, lay altogether out of his jurisdiction. Under the 
charter of justice, he had no more right to inquire into 
crimes committed by Asiatics in Oude than the Lord 20 
President of the Court of Session of Scotland to hold 
an assize at Exeter. He had no right to try the 
Begums, nor did he pretend to try them. With what 
object, then, did he undertake so long a journey ? 
Evidently in order that he might give, in an irregular 25 



126 MAC AUL AY'S ESSAY 

manner, the sanction which in a regular manner he 
could not give, to the crimes of those who had re- 
cently hired him ; and in order that a confused mass 
of testimony which he did not sift, which he did not 
5 even read, might acquire an authority not properly 
belonging to it, from the signature of the highest 
judicial functionary in India. 

The time was approaching, however, when he was 
to be stripped of that robe which has never, since the 

10 Revolution, been disgraced so foully as by him. The 
state of India had for some time occupied much of 
the attention of the British Parliament. Towards the 
close of the American war, two committees of the 
Commons sat on Eastern affairs. In one Edmund 

15 Burke took the lead. The other was under the presi- 
dency of the able and versatile Henry Dundas, then 
Lord Advocate of Scotland. Great as are the changes 
which, during the last sixty years, have taken place in 
our Asiatic dominions, the reports which those com- 

20 mittees laid on the table of the House will still be 
found most interesting and instructive. 

There was as yet °no connection between the Com- 
pany and either of the great parties in the state. The 
ministers had no motive to defend Indian abuses. 

25 On the contrary, it was for their interest to show, if 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 127 

possible, that ' the government and patronage of our 
Oriental empire might, with advantage, be transferred 
to themselves. The votes, therefore, which, in con- 
sequence of the reports made by the two committees, 
were passed by the Commons, breathed the spirit of 5 
stern and indignant justice. The severest epithets 
were applied to several of the measures of Hastings, 
especially to the Eohilla war ; and it was resolved, on 
the motion of Mr. Dundas, that the Company ought to 
recall a G-overnor-General who had brought such ca- 10 
lamities on the Indian people, and such dishonor on 
the British name. An act was passed for limiting 
the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. The bargain 
which Hastings had made with the Chief Justice 
was condemned in the strongest terms ; and an 15 
address was presented to the king, praying that 
Impey might be summoned home to answer for his ^ 
misdeeds. 

Impey was recalled by a letter from the Secretary 
of State. But the proprietors of India Stock reso- 20 
lutely refused to dismiss Hastings from their service, 
and passed a resolution affirming, what was undeni- 
ably true, that they were intrusted by law with the 
right of naming and removing their Governor-General, 
and that they were not bound to obey the directions 25 



128 MACAULAY'S ESSAY 

of a single branch of the legislature with respect to 
such nomination or removal. 

Thus supported by his employers, Hastings re- 
mained at the head of the government of Bengal till 

5 the spring of 1785. His administration, so eventful 
and stormy, closed in almost perfect quiet. In the 
Council there was no regular opposition to his meas- 
ures. Peace was restored to India. The Mahratta 
war had ceased. Hyder was no more. A treaty had 

10 been concluded with his son, Tippoo; and the Car- 

natic had been evacuated by the armies of Mysore. 

Since the termination of the American war, England 

had no European enemy or rival in the Eastern seas. 

On a general review of the long administration of 

15 Hastings, it is impossible to deny that, against the 
great crimes by which it is blemished, we have to 
set off great public services. England had passed 
through a perilous crisis. She still, indeed, main- 
tained her place in the foremost rank of European 

20 powers ; and the manner in which she had defended 
herself against fearful odds had inspired surrounding 
nations with a high opinion both of her spirit and of 
her strength. Nevertheless, in every part of the 
world, except one, she had been a loser. Not only 

25 had she been compelled to acknowledge the indepen- 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 129 

dence of thirteen colonies peopled by her children, and 
to conciliate the Irish by giving up the right of legis- 
lating for them ; but, in the Mediterranean, in the 
Gulf of Mexico, on the coast of Africa, on the conti- 
nent of America, she had been compelled to cede the 5 
fruits of her victories in former wars. Spain regained 
Minorca and Florida; France regained Senegal, Goree, 
and several West Indian Islands. The only, quarter 
of the world in which Britain had lost nothing was 
the quarter in which her interests had been committed 10 
to the care of Hastings. In spite of the utmost exer- 
tions both of European and Asiatic enemies, the power 
of our country in the East had been greatly aug- 
mented. Benares was subjected; the Nabob Vizier 
reduced to vassalage. That our influence had been 15 
thus extended, nay, that Fort William and Fort St. 
George had not been occupied by hostile armies, was 
owing, if we may trust the general voice of the Eng- 
lish in India, to the skill and resolution of Hastings. 

His internal administration, with all its blemishes, 20 
gives him a title to be considered as one of the most 
remarkable men in our history. He dissolved the 
double government. He transferred the direction of 
affairs to English hands. Out of a frightful anarchy, 
he educed at least a rude and imperfect order. The 25 



130 JfACAULAY'S ESSAY 

whole organization by wliicli justice was dispensed, 
revenue collected, peace maintained throughout a ter- 
ritory not inferior in population to the dominions of 
Lewis the Sixteenth or of the Emperor Joseph, was 
5 formed and superintended by him. He boasted that 
every public office, without exception, which existed 
when he left Bengal, was his creation. It is quite 
true that this system, after all the improvements sug- 
gested by the experience of sixty years, still needs 

10 improvement, and that it was at first far more defec- 
tive than it now is. But whoever seriously considers 
what it is to construct from the beginning the whole 
of a machine so vast and complex as a government, 
will allow that what Hastings effected deserves high 

15 admiration. To compare the most celebrated Euro- 
pean ministers to him seems to us as unjust as it 
would be to compare the best baker in London with 
E-obinson Crusoe, who, before he could bake a single 
loaf, had to make his plough and his harrow, his 

20 fences and his scarecrows, his sickle and his flail, his 
mill and his oven. 

The just fame of Hastings rises still higher, when 
we reflect that he was not bred a statesman ; that he 
was sent from school to a counting-house ; and that 

25 he was employed during the prime of his manhood 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 131 

as a commercial agent, far from all intellectual 
society. 

Nor must we forget that all, or almost all, to whom, 
when placed at the head of affairs, he could apply 
for assistance, were persons who owed as little as 5 
himself, or less than himself, to education. A min- 
ister in Europe finds himself, on the first day on which 
he commences his functions, surrounded by experi- 
enced public servants, the depositaries of official tradi- 
tions. Hastings had no such help. His own reflection, 10 
his own energy, were to supply the place of all °Down- 
ing Street and Somerset House. Having had no fa- 
cilities for learning, he was forced to teach. He had 
first to form himself, and then to form his instru- 
ments ; and this not in a single department, but in 15 
all the departments of the administration. 

It must be added that, while engaged in this most 
arduous task, he was constantly trammelled by orders 
from home, and frequently borne down by a majority 
in council. The preservation of an Empire from a 20 
formidable combination of foreign enemies, the con- 
struction of a government in all its parts, were accom- 
plished by him, while every ship brought out bales 
of censure from his employers, and while the records 
of every consultation were filled with acrimonious 25 



132 MACAULAY^S ESSAY 

minutes by his colleagues. We believe that there 
never was a public man whose temper was so severely 
tried ; not Marlborough, when thwarted by the Dutch 
Deputies ; not Wellington, when he had to deal at 
5 once with the Portuguese Regency, the Spanish 
Juntas, and Mr. Percival, But the temper of Hastings 
was equal to almost any trial. It was not sweet ; but 
it was calm. Quick and vigorous as his intellect was, 
the patience with which he endured the most cruel 

10 vexations, till a remedy could be found, resembled the 
patience of stupidity. He seems to have been capable 
of resentment, bitter and long-enduring ; yet his resent- 
ment so seldom hurried him into any blunder, that it 
may be doubted whether what appeared to be revenge 

15 was any thing but policy. 

The effect of this singular equanimity was that he 
always had the full command of all the resources of 
one of the most fertile minds that ever existed. Ac- 
cordingly no complication of perils and embarrass- 

20 ments could perplex him. For every difficulty he 
had a contrivance ready ; and, whatev^er may be 
thought of the justice and humanity of some of his 
contrivances, it is certain that they seldom failed to 
serve the purpose for which they were designed. 

25 Together with this extraordinary talent for devising 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 133 

expedients, Hastings possessed, in a very high, degree, 
another talent scarcely less necessary to a man in his 
situation ; we mean the talent for conducting political 
controversy. It is as necessary to an English states- 
man in the East that he should be able to write, as it 5 
is to a minister in this country that he should be able 
to speak. It is chiefly by the oratory of a public man 
here that the nation judges of his powers. It is from 
the letters and reports of a public man in India that 
the dispensers of patronage form their estimate of 10 
him. In each case, the talent which receives peculiar 
encouragement is developed, perhaps at the expense 
of the other powers. In this country, we sometimes 
hear men speak above their abilities. It is not very 
unusual to find gentlemen in the Indian service who 15 
write above their abilities. The English politician is 
a little too much of a debater ; the Indian politician a 
little too much of an essayist. 

Of the numerous servants of the Company who 
have distinguished themselves as framers of minutes 20 
and despatches, Hastings stands at the head. He was 
indeed the person who gave to the official writing of 
the Indian governments the character which it still 
retains. He was matched against no common antago- 
nist. But even Francis was forced to acknowledge, 25 



134 MACAULAY'S ESSAY 

with sullen and resentful candor, that there was no 
contending against the pen of Hastings. And, in 
truth, the Governor-General's power of making out a 
case, of perplexing what it was inconvenient that 
5 people should understand, and of setting in the clear- 
est point of view whatever would bear the light, was 
incomparable. His style must be praised with some 
reservation. It was in general forcible, pure, and pol- 
ished ; but it was sometimes, though not often, turgid, 

10 and, on one or two occasions, even bombastic. Per- 
haps the fondness of Hastings for Persian literature 
may have tended to corrupt his taste. 

And, since we have referred to his literary tastes, 
it would be most unjust not to praise the judicious 

15 encouragement which, as a ruler, he gave to liberal 
studies and curious researches. His patronage was 
extended, with prudent generosity, to voyages, travels, 
experiments, publications. He did little, it is true, 
towards introducing into India the learning of the 

20 West. To make the young natives of Bengal familiar 
with Milton and Adam Smith, to substitute the ge- 
ography, astronomy, and surgery of Europe for the 
dotages of the Brahminical superstition, or for the 
imperfect science of ancient Greece transfused through 

25 Arabian expositions, this was a scheme reserved to 



02^ WARREN HAS TINGS 135 

crown the "beneficent administration of a far more 
virtuous ruler. Still it is impossible to refuse high 
commendation to a man who, taken from a ledger to 
govern an empire, overwhelmed by public business, 
surrounded by people as busy as himself, and sepa- 5 
rated by thousands of leagues from almost all literary 
society, gave, both by his example and by his munifi- 
cence, a great impulse to learning. In Persian and 
Arabic literature he was deeply skilled. With the 
Sanscrit he was not himself acquainted; but those 10 
who first brought that language to the knowledge of 
European students owed much to his encouragement. 
It was under his protection that the Asiatic Society 
commenced its honorable career. That distinguished 
body selected him to be its first president ; but, with 15 
excellent taste and feeling, he declined the honor in 
favor of Sir William Jones. But the chief advantage 
which the students of Oriental letters derived from 
his patronage remains to be mentioned. The °Pundits 
of Bengal had always looked with great jealousy on 20 
the attempts of foreigners to pry into those mysteries 
which were locked up in the sacred dialect. The 
Brahminical religion had been persecuted by the Ma- 
hommedans. AVhat the Hindoos knew of the spirit of 
the Portuguese government might warrant them in 25 



136 MACAULAY^S ESSAY 

apprehending persecution from Christians. That ap- 
prehension the wisdom and moderation of Hastings 
removed. He was the first foreign ruler who succeeded 
in gaining the confidence of the hereditary priests of 

5 India, and who induced them to lay open to English 
scholars the secrets of the old Brahminical theology 
and jurisprudence. 

It is indeed impossible to deny that, in the great 
art of inspiring large masses of human beings with 

10 confidence and attachment, no ruler ever surpassed 
Hastings. If he had made himself popular with the 
English by giving up the Bengalees to extortion and 
oppression, or if, on the other hand, he had conciliated 
the Bengalees and alienated the English, there would 

15 have been no cause for wonder. What is peculiar to 
him is that, being the chief of a small band of strangers 
who exercised boundless power over a great indigenous 
population, he made himself beloved both by the sub- 
ject many and by the dominant few. The affection 

20 felt for him by the civil service was singularly ardent 
and constant. Through all his disasters and perils, 
his brethren stood by him with steadfast loyalty. 
The army, at the same time, loved him as armies have 
seldom loved any but the greatest chiefs who have led 

25 them to victory. Even in his disputes with distiu- 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 137 

guished military men, lie could always count on the 
support of the military profession. While such was 
his empire over the hearts of his countrymen, he 
enjoyed among the natives a popularity, such as other 
governors have perhaps better merited, but such as no 5 
other governor has been able to attain. He spoke 
their vernacular dialects with facility and precision. 
He was intimately acquainted with their feelings and 
usages. On one or two occasions, for great ends, he 
deliberately acted in defiance of their opinion ; but on 10 
such occasions he gained more in their respect than 
he lost in their love. In general, he carefully avoided 
all that could shock their national or religious preju- 
dices. His administration was indeed in many re- 
spects faulty; but the Bengalee standard of good 15 
government was not high. Under the Nabobs, the 
hurricane of Mahratta cavalry had passed annually 
over the rich alluvial plain. But even the Mahratta 
shrank from a conflict with the mighty children of 
the sea ; and the immense rice harvests of the Lower 20 
Ganges were safely gathered in, under the protection 
of the English sword. The first English conquerors 
had been more rapacious and merciless even than the 
Mahrattas; but that generation had passed away. 
Defective as was the police, heavy as were the public 25 



138 MACAULAY^S ESSAY 

burdens, it is probable that the oldest man in Bengal 
could not recollect a season of equal security and pros- 
perity. For the first time within living memory, the 
province was placed under a government strong enough 
5 to prevent others from robbing, and not inclined to 
play the robber itself. These things inspired good- 
will. At the same time, the constant success of 
Hastings and the manner in which he extricated 
himself from every difficulty made him an object of 

lo superstitious admiration ; and the more than regal 
splendor which he sometimes displayed dazzled a 
people who have much in common with children. 
Even now, after the lapse of more than fifty years, 
the natives of India still talk of him as the greatest 

15 of the English; and nurses sing children to sleep 
with a jingling ballad about the fleet horses and richly 
cajjarisoned elephants of Sahib Warren H ostein. 

The gravest offences of which Hastings was guilty 
did not affect his popularity with the people of Bengal ; 

20 for those offences were committed against neighboring 
states. Those offences, as our readers must have per- 
ceived, we are not disposed to vindicate ; yet, in order 
that the censure may be justly apportioned to the 
transgression, it is fit that the motive of the criminal 

25 should be taken into consideration. The motive which 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 139 

prompted the worst acts of Hastings was misdirected 
and ill-regulated public spirit. The rules of justice, 
the sentiments of humanity, the plighted faith of 
treaties, were in his view as nothing, when opposed 
to the immediate interest of the state. This is no 5 
justification, according to the principles either of 
morality, or of what we believe to be identical with 
morality, namely, far-sighted policy. Nevertheless 
the common-sense of mankind, which in questions of 
this kind seldom goes far wrong, will always recognize 10 
a distinction between crimes which originate in an 
inordinate zeal for the commonwealth, and crimes 
which originate in selfish cupidity. To the benefit 
of this distinction Hastings is fairly entitled. There 
is, we conceive, no reason to suspect that the Rohilla 15 
war, the revolution of Benares, or the spoliation of 
the Princesses of Oude, added a rupee to his fortune. 
We will not affirm that, in all pecuniary dealings, he 
showed that punctilious integrity, that dread of the 
faintest appearance of evil, which is now the glory of 20 
the Indian civil service. But when the school in 
which he had been trained and the temptations to 
which he was exposed are considered, we are more 
inclined to praise him for his general uprightness with 
respect to money, than rigidly to blame him for a 25 



140 MAC A CLAY'S ESSAY 

few transactions which would now be called indelicate 
and irregular, but which even now would hardly be 
designated as corrupt. A rapacious man he certainly 
was not. Had he been so, he would infallibly have 

5 returned to his country the richest subject in Europe. 
We speak within compass, when we say that, without 
ajjplying any extraordinary pressure he might easily 
have obtained from the °zemindars of the Company's 
provinces and from neighboring princes, in the course 

10 of thirteen years, more than three millions sterling, 
and might have outshone the splendor of °Carlton 
House and of the Palais Royal. He brought home a 
fortune such as a Governor-General, fond of state, 
and careless of thrift, might easily, during so long a 

15 tenure of of&ce, save out of his legal salary. Mrs. 
Hastings, we are afraid, was less scrupulous. It was 
generally believed that she accepted presents with 
great alacrity, and that she thus formed, without the 
connivance of her husband, a private hoard amounting 

20 to several lacs of rupees. We are the more inclined 
to give credit to this story, because Mr. Gleig, who 
cannot but have heard it, does not, as far as we have 
observed, notice or contradict it. 

The influence of Mrs. Hastings over her husband 

25 was indeed such that she might easily have obtained 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 141 

much larger sums than she was ever accused of receiv- 
ing. At length her health began to give way ; and 
the Governor-General, much against his will, was com- 
pelled to send her to England. He seems to have 
loved her with that love which is peculiar to men of 5 
strong minds, to men whose affection is not easily 
won or widely diffused. The talk of Calcutta ran for 
some time on the luxurious manner in which he fitted 
up the round-house of an Indiaman for her accommoda- 
tion, on the profusion of sandal-wood and carved ivory 10 
which adorned her cabin, and on the thousands of 
rupees which had been expended in order to procure 
for her the society of an agreeable female companion 
during the voyage. We may remark here that the 
letters of Hastings to his wife are exceedingly charac- 15 
teristic. They are tender, and full of indications of 
esteem and confidence ; but, at the same time, a little 
more ceremonious than is usual in so intimate a rela- 
tion. The solemn courtesy with which he compli- 
ments " his elegant Marian " reminds us now and then 20 
of the dignified air with which °Sir Charles Grandison 
bowed over Miss Byron's hand in the cedar parlor. 

After some months, Hastings prepared to follow his 
wife to England. When it was announced that he 
was about to quit his office, the feeling of the society 25 



142 MACAULAY'S ESSAY 

which he had so long governed manifested itself by 
many signs. Addresses poured in from Europeans 
and Asiatics, from civil functionaries, soldiers, and 
traders. On the day on which he delivered up the 
5 keys of office, a crowd of friends and admirers formed 
a lane to the quay where he embarked. Several 
barges escorted him far down the river; and some 
attached friends refused to quit him till the low coast 
of Bengal was fading from the view, and till the pilot 

10 was leaving the ship. 

Of his voyage little is known, except that he 
amused himself with his books and with his pen; and 
that, among the compositions by which he beguiled 
the tediousness of that long leisure, was a pleasing 

15 imitation of Horace's Otium Divos rogat. This little 
poem was inscribed to Mr. Shore, afterwards Lord 
Teignmouth, a man of whose integrity, humanity, and 
honor it is impossible to speak too highly, but who, 
like some other excellent members of the civil service, 

20 extended to the conduct of his friend Hastings an 
indulgence of which his own conduct never stood in 
need. 

The voyage was, for those times, very speedy. Hast- 
ings was little more than four months on the sea. In 

25 June, 1785, he landed at Plymouth, posted to London, 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 143 

appeared at Court, paid his respects in Leadenhall 
Street, and then retired with his wife to Cheltenham. 

He was greatly pleased with his reception. The\ 
King treated him with marked distinction. The Queen, 
who had already incurred much censure on account of 5 
the favor which, in spite of the ordinary severity of her 
virtue, she had shown to the "elegant Marian,'^ was 
not less gracious to Hastings. The Directors received 
him in a solemn sitting ; and their chairman read to 
him a vote of thanks which they had passed without 10 
one dissentient voice. " I find myself," said Hastings, 
in a letter written about a quarter of a year after his 
arrival in England, "I find myself everywhere, and 
universally, treated with evidences, apparent even to 
my own observation, that I possess the good opinion 15 
of my country." 

The confident and exulting tone of his correspond- 
ence about this time is the more remarkable, because 
he had already received ample notice of the attack 
which was in preparation. Within a week after he 20 
landed at Plymouth, Burke gave notice in the House 
of Commons of a motion seriously affecting a gentle- 
man lately returned from India. The session, how- 
ever, was then so far advanced, that it was impossible 
to enter on so extensive and important a subject. 25 



144 MACAULAY^S £SSAY 

Hastings, it is clear, was not sensible of the danger 
of his position. Indeed that sagacity, that judgment, 
that readiness in devising expedients, which had dis- 
tinguished him in the East, seemed now to have for- 
5 saken him ; not that his abilities were at all impaired ; 
not that he was not still the same man who had 
triumphed over Francis and Nuncomar, who had made 
the Chief Justice and the Nabob Vizier his tools, who 
had deposed Cheyte Sing, and repelled Hyder Ali. 

10 But an oak, as Mr. Grattan finely said, should not be 
transplanted at fifty. A man who, having left England 
when a boy, returns to it after thirty or forty years 
passed in India, will find, be his talents what they 
may, that he has much both to learn and to unlearn 

15 before he can take a place among English statesmen. 
The working of a representative system, the war of 
parties, the arts of debate, the influence of the press, 
are startling novelties to him. Surrounded on every 
side by new machines and new tactics, he is as much 

20 bewildered as Hannibal would have been at Waterloo, 
or Themistocles at Trafalgar. His very acuteness 
deludes him. His very vigor causes him to stumble. 
The more correct his maxims, when applied to the 
state of society to which he is accustomed, the more 

25 certain they are to lead him astray. This was strik- 



ON' WARREN HASTINGS 145 

ingly the case witli Hastings. In India lie had a bad 
hand; but he was master of the game, and he won 
every stake. In England he held excellent cards, if 
he had known how to play them ; and it was chiefly 
by his own errors that he was brought to the verge of 5 
ruin. 

Of all his errors the most serious was perhaps the 
choice of a champion. Olive, in similar circumstances, 
had made a singularly happy selection. He put him- 
self into the hands of Wedderburn, afterwards Lord 10 
Loughborough, one of the few great advocates who 
have also been great in the House of Oommons. To 
the defence of Olive, therefore, nothing was wanting, 
neither learning nor knowledge of the world, neither 
forensic acuteness nor that eloquence which charms 15 
political assemblies. Hastings intrusted his interests 
to a very different person, a major in the Bengal army, 
named Scott. This gentleman had been sent over from 
India some time before as an agent of the Governor- 
General. It was rumored that his services were re- 20 
warded with Oriental munificence ; and we believe 
that he received much more than Hastings could con- 
veniently spare. The Major obtained a seat in Par- 
liament, and was there regarded as the organ of his 
employer. It was evidently impossible that a. gentle- 25 



146 MACAULAY^S ESSAY 

man so situated could speak with the authority which 
belongs to an independent position. Nor had the 
agent of Hastings the talents necessary for obtaining 
the ear of an assembly which, accustomed to listen 

5 to great orators, had naturally become fastidious. He 
was always on his legs ; he was very tedious ; and he 
had only one topic, the merits and wrongs of Hastings. 
Everybody who knows the House of Commons will 
easily guess what followed. The Major was soon 

JO considered as the greatest bore of his time. His 
exertions were not confined to Parliament. There was 
hardly a day on which the newspapers did not con- 
tain some puff upon Hastings, signed Asiaticus or Ben- 
galensiSf but known to be written by the indefatigable 

15 Scott; and hardly a month in which some bulky 
pamphlet on the same subject, and from the same 
pen, did not pass to the trunkmakers and the pastry- 
cooks. As to this gentleman's capacity for conducting 
a delicate question through Parliament, our readers 

20 will want no evidence beyond that which they will 
find in letters preserved in these volumes. We will 
give a single specimen of his temper and judgment. 
He designated the greatest man then living as "that 
reptile Mr. Burke." 

25 In spite, however, of this unfortunate choice, the 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 147 

general aspect of affairs was favorable to Hastings. 
The King was on his side. The Company and its 
servants were zealous in his cause. Among public 
men he had many ardent friends. Such were Lord 
Mansfield, who had outlived the vigor of his body, 5 
but not that of his mind; and Lord Lansdown, who, 
though unconnected with any party, retained the 
importance which belongs to great talents and knowl- 
edge. The ministers were generally believed to be 
favorable to the late Governor-General. They owed 10 
their power to the clamor which had been raised 
against Mr. Fox's East India Bill. The authors of 
that bill, when accused of invading vested rights, and 
of setting up powers unknown to the constitution, had 
defended themselves by pointing to the crimes of 15 
Hastings, and by arguing that abuses so extraordinary 
justified extraordinary measures. Those who, by 
opposing that bill, had raised themselves to the head 
of affairs, would naturally be inclined to extenuate 
the evils which had been made the plea for adminis- 20 
tering so violent a remedy ; and such, in fact, was 
their general disposition. The Lord Chancellor Thur- 
low, in particular, whose great place and force of 
intellect gave him a weight in the government in- 
ferior only to that of Mr. Pitt, espoused the cause of 25 



148 ^fACAULAY^S ESSAY 

Hastings with indecorous violence. Mr. Pitt, though 
he had censured many parts of the Indian system, 
had studiously abstained from saying a word against 
the late chief of the Indian government. To Major 

5 Scott, indeed, the °young minister had in private 
extolled Hastings as a great, a wonderful man, who 
had the highest claims on the government. There 
was only one objection to granting all that so eminent 
a servant of the public could ask. The resolution of 

10 censure still remained on the journals of the House of 
Commons. That resolution was, indeed, unjust; but, 
till it was rescinded, could the minister advise the 
King to bestow any mark of approbation on the person 
censured ? If Major Scott is to be trusted, Mr. Pitt 

15 declared that this was the only reason which pre- 
vented the advisers of the Crown from conferring a 
peerage on the late Governor-General. Mr. Dundas 
was the only important member of the administration 
who was deeply committed to a different view of the 

20 subject. He had moved the resolution which created 
the difficulty ; but even from him little was to be 
apprehended. Since he had presided over the com- 
mittee on Eastern affairs, the great changes had taken 
place. He was surrounded by new allies; he had 

25 fixed his hopes on new objects ; and whatever may 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 149 

have been his good qualities, — and he had many,— ^ 
flattery itself never reckoned rigid consistency in the 
number. 

From the ministry, therefore, Hastings had every 
reason to expect support ; and the ministry was very 5 
powerful. The opposition was loud and vehement 
against him. But the opposition, though formidable 
from the wealth and influence of some of its members, 
and from the admirable talents and eloquence of 
others, was outnumbered in Parliament, and odious 10 
throughout the country. Nor, as far as we can judge, 
was the opposition generally desirous to engage in so 
serious an undertaking as the impeachment of an 
Indian G-overnor. Such an impeachment must last 
for years. It must impose on the chiefs of the party 15 
an immense load of labor. Yet it could scarcely, in 
any manner, affect the event of the great political 
game. The followers of the coalition were therefore 
more inclined to revile Hastings than to prosecute 
him. They lost no opportunity of coupling his name 20 
with the names of the most hateful tyrants of whom 
history makes mention. The wits of °Brooks's aimed 
their keenest sarcasms both at his public and at his 
domestic life. Some fine diamonds which he had 
presented, as it was rumored, to the royal family, 25 



150 MACAULAT'S 'ESSAY 

and a certain richly carved ivory bed which the Queen 
had done him the honor to accept from him, were 
favorite subjects of ridicule. One lively poet pro- 
posed that the great acts of the fair Marian's pres- 

5 ent husband should be immortalized by the pencil of 
his predecessor ; and that Imhoff should be employed 
to embellish the House of Commons with paintings 
of the bleeding Rohillas, of Nuncomar swinging, of 
Cheyte Sing letting himself down to the Ganges. 

10 Another, in an exquisitely humorous parody of Virgil's 
third eclogue, propounded the question, what that min- 
eral could be of which the rays had power to make 
the most austere of princesses the friend of a wanton. 
A third described, with gay malevolence, the gorgeous 

15 appearance of Mrs. Hastings at St. James's, the galaxy 
of jewels, torn from Indian Begums, which adorned 
her head dress, her necklace gleaming with future 
votes, and the depending questions that shone upon 
her ears. Satirical attacks of this description, and 

20 perhaps a motion for a vote of censure, would have 
satisfied the great body of the opposition. But there 
were two men whose indignation was not to be so 
appeased, Philip Francis and °Edmund Burke. 

Francis had recently entered the House of Com- 

25 mons, and had already established a character there 



ON' WARREN HASTINGS 151 

for industry and ability. He labored indeed under 
one most unfortunate defect, want of fluency. But 
lie occasionally expressed himself with a dignity and 
energy worthy of the greatest orators. Before he had 
been many days in Parliament, he incurred the bitter 5 
dislike of Pitt, who constantly treated him with as 
much asperity as the laws of debate would allow. 
Neither lapse of years nor change of scene had miti- 
gated the enmities which Francis had brought back 
from the East. After his usual fashion, he mistook 10 
his malevolence for virtue, nursed it, as preachers tell 
us that we ought to nurse our good dispositions, and 
paraded it on all occasions with Pharisaical ostentation. 
The zeal of Burke was still fiercer ; but it was far 
purer. Men unable to understand the elevation of his 15 
mind have tried to find out some discreditable motive 
for the vehemence and pertinacity which he showed on 
this occasion. But they have altogether failed. The 
idle story that he had some private slight to revenge 
has long been- given up, even by the advocates of Hast- 20 
ings. Mr. Gleig supposes that Burke was actuated by 
party spirit, that he retained a bitter remembrance of 
the fall of the coalition, that he attributed that fall to 
the exertions of the East India interest, and that he 
considered Hastings as the head and the representative 25 



152 MACAULAY^S ESSAY 

of that interest. This explanation seems to be suffi- 
ciently refuted by a reference to dates. The hostility 
of Burke to Hastings commenced long before the coali- 
tion; and lasted long after Burke had become a stren- 
5 uous supporter of those by whom the coalition had 
been defeated. It began when Burke and Fox, closely 
allied together, were attacking the influence of the 
crown, and calling for peace with the American repub- 
lic. It continued till Burke, alienated from Fox, and 

10 loaded with the favors of the crown, died, preaching a 
crusade against the French republic. We surely can- 
not attribute to the events of 1784 an enmity which 
began in 1781, and which retained undiminished force 
long after persons far more deeply implicated than 

15 Hastings in the events of 1784 had been cordially for- 
given. Arid why should we look for any other expla- 
nation of Burke's conduct than that which we find on 
the surface? The plain truth is that Hastings had 
committed some great crimes, and that the thought of 

20 those crimes made the blood of Burke boil in his veins. 
For Burke was a man in whom compassion for suffer- 
ing, and hatred of injustice and tyranny, were as 
strong as in °Las Casas or Clarkson. And although in 
him, as in Las Casas and in Clarkson, these noble feel- 

25 ings were alloyed with the infirmity which belongs to 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 153 

human nature, lie is, like them, entitled to this great 
praise, that he devoted years of intense labor to the 
service of a people with whom he had neither blood 
nor language, neither religion nor manners in common, 
and from whom no requital, no thanks, no applause 5 
could be expected. 

His knowledge of India was such as few, even of 
those Europeans who have passed many years in that 
country, have attained, and such as certainly was 
never attained by any public man who had not quitted 10 
Europe. He had studied the history, the laws, and 
the usages of the East with an industry, such as is 
seldom found united to so much genius and so much 
sensibilitj^ Others have perhaps been equally labori- 
ous, and have collected an equal mass of materials. 15 
But the manner in which Burke brought his higher 
powers of intellect to work on statements of facts, 
and on tables of figures, was peculiar to himself. In 
every part of those huge bales of Indian information 
which repelled almost all other readers, his mind, at 20 
once philosophical and poetical, found something to 
instruct or to delight. His reason analyzed and 
digested those vast and shapeless masses ; his imagi- 
nation animated and colored them. Out of darkness, 
and dulness, and confusion, he formed a multitude 35 



154 MACAULAY^S ESSAY 

of ingenious theories and vivid pictures. He had, in 
the higliest degree, that noble faculty whereby man 
is able to live in the past and in the future, in the 
distant and in the unreal. India and its inhabitants 
5 were not to him, as to most Englishmen, mere names 
and abstractions, but a real country and a real people. 
The burning sun, the strange vegetation of the palm 
and the cocoa tree, the rice-field, the tank, the huge 
trees, older than the Mogul empire, under which the 

10 village crowds assemble, the thatched roof of the 
peasant's hut, the rich tracery of the mosque where 
the imaum prays with his face to Mecca, the drums, 
and banners, and gaudy idols, the devotee swinging 
in the air, the graceful maiden, with the pitcher on 

15 her head, descending the steps to the river-side, the 
black faces, the long beards, the yellow streaks of 
sect, the turbans and the flowing robes, the spears 
and the silver maces, the elephants with their can- 
opies of state, the gorgeous palanquin of the prince, 

20 and the close litter of the noble lady, all these things 
were to him as the objects amidst which his own life 
had been passed, as the objects which lay on the road 
between Beaconsfield and St. James's Street. All 
India was present to the eye of his mind, from the 

25 halls where suitors laid gold and perfumes at the feet 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 155 

of sovereigns to the wild moor where the gypsy camp 
was pitched, from the bazaar, humming like a bee-hive 
with the crowd of buyers and sellers, to the jungle 
where the lonely courier shakes his bunch of iron 
rings to scare away the hysenas. He had just as 5 
lively an idea of the insurrection at Benares as of 
Lord George Gordon's riots, and of the execution of 
Nuncomar as of the execution of Dr. Dodd. Oppres- 
sion in Bengal was to him the same thing as oppres- 
sion in the "streets of London. 10 

He saw that Hastings had been guilty of some most 
unjustifiable acts. All that followed was natural and 
necessary in a mind like Burke's. His imagination 
and his passions, once excited, hurried him beyond 
the bounds of justice and good sense. His reason, 15 
powerful as it was, became the slave of feelings which 
it should have controlled. His indignation, virtuous 
in its origin, acquired too much of the character of 
personal aversion. He could see no mitigating cir- 
cumstance, no redeeming merit. His temper, which, 20 
though generous and affectionate, had ahvays been 
irritable, had now been made almost savage by bodily 
infirmities and mental vexations. Conscious of great 
powers and great virtues, he found himself, in age 
and poverty, a mark for the hatred of a perfidious 25 



156 MACAULAY^S ESSAY 

court and a deluded people. In Parliament his elo- 
quence was out of date. A young generation, which 
knew him not, had filled the House. Whenever he 
rose to speak, his voice was drowned by the unseemly 

5 interruption of lads who were in their cradles when 
his orations on the °Stamp Act called forth the ap- 
j)lause of the great Earl of Chatham. These things 
had produced on his proud and sensitive spirit an 
effect at which we cannot wonder. He could no 

10 longer discuss any question with calmness, or make 
allowance for honest differences of opinion. Those 
who think that he was more violent and acrimonious 
in debates about India than on other occasions are ill 
informed respecting the last years of his life. In the 

15 discussions on the Commercial Treaty with the Court 
of Versailles, on the Regency, on the French Eevolu- 
tion, he showed even more virulence than in conduct- 
ing the impeachment. Indeed it may be remarked 
that the very persons who call him a mischievous 

20 maniac, for condemning in burning words the Rohilla 
war and the spoliation of the Begums, exalted him 
into a prophet as soon as he began to declaim, with 
greater vehemence, and not with greater reason, 
against the taking of the Bastile and the insults 

25 offered to Marie Antoinette. To us he appears to 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 157 

have been neither a maniac in the former case, nor a 
prophet in the latter, but in both cases a great and 
good man, led into extravagance by a sensibility 
which domineered over all his faculties. 

It may be doubted whether the personal antipathy 5 
of Francis or the nobler indignation of Burke, would 
have led their party to adopt extreme measures 
against Hastings, if his own conduct had been judi- 
cious. He should have felt that, great as his public 
services had been, he was not faultless, and should 10 
have been content to make his escape, without aspir- 
ing to the honors of a triumph. He and his agent 
took a different view. They were impatient for the 
rewards which, as they conceived, were deferred only 
till Burke's attack should be over. They accordingly 15 
resolved to force on a decisive action with an enemy 
for whom, if they had been wise, they would have 
made a bridge of gold. On the first day of the ses- 
sion in 1786, Major Scott reminded Burke of the 
notice given in the preceding year, and asked whether 20 
it was seriously intended to bring any charge against 
the late Governor-General. This challenge left no 
course open to the Opposition, except to come forward 
as accusers, or to acknowledge themselves calumnia- 
tors. The administration of Hastings had not been so 25 



158 MACAULAT'S ESSAY 

blameless, nor was the great party of Fox and North 
so feeble, that it could be prudent to venture on so 
bold a defiance. The leaders of the Opposition 
instantly returned the only answer which they could 
5 with honor return ; and the whole party was irrevoca- 
bl}* pledged to a prosecution. 

Burke began his operations by apj)lying for Papers. 
Some of the documents for which he asked were 
refused by the ministers, who, in the debate, held 

10 language such as strongly confirmed the prevailing 
opinion, that they intended to support Hastings. In 
April, the charges were laid on the table. They had 
been drawn by Burke with great ability, though in 
a form too much resembling that of a pamphlet. 

15 Hastings was furnished with a copy of the accusa- 
tion ; and it was intimated to him that he might, if 
he thought fit, be heard in his own defence at the 
bar of the Commons. 

Here again Hastings was pursued by the same 

20 fatality which had attended him ever since the day 
when he set foot on English ground. It seemed to 
be decreed that this man, so politic and so success- 
ful in the East, should commit nothing but blunders 
in Europe. Any judicious adviser would have told 

25 him that the best thing which he could do would be 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 159 

to make an eloquent, forcible, and affecting oration 
at tlie bar of the House; but that, if he could not 
trust himself to speak, and found it necessary to read, 
he ought to be as concise as possible. Audiences 
accustomed to extemporaneous debating of the high- 5 
est excellence are always impatient of long written 
compositions. Hastings, however, sat down as he 
would have done at the Government-house in Bengal, 
and prepared a paper of immense length. That paper, 
if recorded on the consultations of an Indian admin- 10 
istration, would have been justly praised as a very 
able minute. But it was now out of place. It fell flat, 
as the best written defence must have fallen flat, on 
an assembly accustomed to the animated and strenu- 
ous conflicts of Pitt and Fox. The members, as soon 15 
as their curiosity about the face and demeanor of so 
eminent a stranger was satisfied, walked away to din- 
ner, and left Hastings to tell his story till midnight 
to the clerks and the Serjeant-at-arms. 

All preliminary steps having been duly taken, Burke, 20 
in the beginning of June, brought forward the charge 
relating to the Rohilla war. He acted discreetly in 
placing this accusation in the van ; for Dundas had 
formerly moved, and the House had adopted, a resolu- 
tion condemning, in the most severe terms, the policy 25 



160 MACAULAY'S ESSAY 

followed by Hastings with regard to Eohilcuiid. Dun- 
das had little, or rather nothing, to say in defence of 
his own consistency ; but he put a bold face on the 
matter, and opposed the motion. Among other things, 
5 he declared that, though he still thought the Rohilla 
war unjustifiable, he considered the services which 
Hastings had subsequently rendered to the state as 
sufficient to atone even for so great an offence. Pitt 
did not speak, but voted with Dundas ; and Hastings 

lo was absolved by a hundred and nineteen votes against 
sixty-seven. 

Hastings was now confident of victory. It seemed, 
indeed, that he had reason to be so. The Rohilla war 
was, of all his measures, that which his accusers might 

15 with greatest advantage assail. It had been con- 
demned by the Court of Directors. It had been con- 
demned by the House of Commons. It had been 
condemned by Mr. Dundas, who had since become the 
chief minister of the Crown for Indian affairs. Yet 

20 Burke, having chosen this strong ground, had been 
completely defeated on it. That, having failed here, 
he should succeed on any point, was generally thought 
impossible. It was rumored at the clubs and coffee- 
houses that one or perhaps two more charges would 

25 be brought forward ; that if, on those charges, the 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 161 

sense of the House of Commons should be against 
impeachment, the Opposition would let the matter 
drop, that Hastings would be immediately raised to 
the peerage, decorated with the star of the Bath, 
°sworn of the privy council, and invited to lend the 5 
assistance of his talents and experience to the India 
board. Lord Thurlow, indeed, some months before, 
had spoken with contempt of the scruples which pre- 
vented Pitt from calling Hastings to the House of 
Lords ; and had even said that, if the Chancellor of 10 
the Exchequer was afraid of the Commons, there was 
nothing to prevent the Keeper of the Great Seal from 
taking the royal pleasure about a patent of peerage. The 
very title was chosen. Hastings was to be Lord Dayles- 
ford. For, through all changes of scene and changes 15 
of fortune, remained unchanged his attachment to the 
spot which had witnessed the greatness and the fall 
of his family, and which had borne so great a part in 
the first dreams of his young ambition. 

But in a very few days these fair prospects were 20 
overcast. On the thirteenth of June, Mr. Eox brought 
forward, with great ability and eloquence, the charge 
respecting the treatment of Cheyte Sing. Francis 
followed on the same side. The friends of Hastings 
were in high spirits when Pitt rose. With his usual 25 

M 



162 MACAULAY'S ESSAY 

abundance and felicity of language, the Minister gave 
his opinion on the case. He maintained that the 
Governor-General was justified in calling on the 
Rajah of Benares for pecuniary assistance, and in 

5 imposing a fine Avhen that assistance was contuma- 
ciously withheld. He also thought that the conduct 
of the Governor-General during the insurrection had 
been distinguished by ability and presence of mind. 
He censured, with great bitterness, the conduct of 

10 Francis, both in India and in Parliament, as most 
dishonest and malignant. The necessary inference 
from Pitt's arguments seemed to be that Hastings 
ought to be honorably acquitted ; and both the friends 
and the opponents of the Minister expected from him 

15 a declaration to that effect. To the astonishment of 
all parties, he concluded by saying that, though he 
thought it right in Hastings to fine Clieyte Sing for 
contumacy, yet the amount of the fine was too great 
for the occasion. On this ground, and on this ground 

20 alone, did Mr. Pitt, applauding every other part of the 
conduct of Hastings with regard to Benares, declare 
that he should vote in favor of Mr. Fox's motion. 

The House was thunderstruck ; and it well might be 
so. For the wrong done to Cheyte Sing, even had it 

25 been as flagitious as Fox and Francis contended, was 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 163 

a trifle when compared with the horrors which had 
been inflicted on Rohilcund. But if Mr. Pitt's view 
of the case of Cheyte Sing were correct, there was no 
ground for an impeachment, or even for a vote of cen- 
sure. If the offence of Hastings was really no more 5 
than this, that, having a right to impose a mulct, the 
amount of which mulct was not defined, but was left 
to be settled by his discretion, he had, not for his own 
advantage, but for that of the state, demanded too 
much, was this an offence which required a criminal ic 
proceeding of the highest solemnity, a criminal pro- 
ceeding, to which, during sixty years, no public func- 
tionary had been subjected ? We can see, we think, 
in what way a man of sense and integrity might have 
been induced to take any course respecting Hastings, 15 
except the course which Mr. Pitt took. Such a man 
might have thought a great example necessary, for the 
preventing of injustice, and for the vindicating of the 
national honor, and might, on that ground, have voted 
for impeachment both on the Rohilla charge, and on 20 
the Benares charge. Such a man might have thought 
that the offences of Hastings had been atoned for by 
great services, and might, on that ground, have voted 
against the impeachment, on both charges. With great 
difiidence, we give it as our opinion that the most cor- 25 



164 MAC AUL AY'S ESSAY 

rect course would, on the whole, have been to impeach 
on the Rohilla charge, and to acquit on the Benares 
charge. Had the Benares charge appeared to us in 
the same light in which it appeared to Mr. Pitt, we 

5 should without hesitation have voted for acquittal 
on that charge. The one course which it is incon- 
ceivable that any man of a tenth part of Mr. Pitt's 
abilities can have honestly taken was the course 
which he took. He acquitted Hastings on the Rohilla 

10 charge. He softened down the Benares charge till 
it became no charge at all ; and then he pronounced 
that it contained matter for impeachment. 

Nor must it be forgotten that the principal reason 
assigned by the ministry for not impeaching Hastings 

15 on account of the E-ohilla war was this, that the delin- 
quencies of the early part of his administration had 
been atoned for by the excellence of the later part. 
Was it not most extraordinary that men who had held 
this language could afterwards vote that the later 

20 part of his administration furnished matter for no less 
than twenty articles of impeachment? They first 
represented the conduct of Hastings in 1780 and 1781 
as so highly meritorious that, like works of super- 
erogation in the Catholic theology, it ought to be 

25 efficacious for the cancelling of former offences j and 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 165 

tliey then prosecuted Min for his conduct in 1780 and 
1781. 

The general astonishment was the greater, because, 
only twenty-four hours before, the members on whom 
the minister could depend had received the usual 5 
notes from the Treasury, begging them to be in their 
places and to vote against Mr. Fox's motion. It was 
asserted by Mr. Hastings, that, early on the morning 
of the very day on which the debate took place, Dun- 
das called on Pitt, woke him, and was closeted with 10 
him many hours. The result of this conference was 
a determination to give up the late Governor-General 
to the vengeance of the Opposition. It was impossible 
even for the most powerful minister to carry alh his 
followers with him in so strange a course. Several 15 
persons high in office, the Attorney-General, Mr. 
Grenville, and Lord Mulgrave, divided against Mr. 
Pitt. But the devoted adherents who stood by the 
head of the government without asking questions, 
were sufficiently numerous to turn the scale. A hun- 20 
dred and nineteen members voted for Mr. Fox's 
motion; seventy-nine against it. Dundas silently 
followed Pitt. 

That good and great man, the late William Wilber- 
force, often related the events of this remarkable 25 



166 MACAULAY'S ESSAY 

night. He described the amazement of the House, 
and the bitter reflections which were muttered against 
the Prime JMinister by some of the habitual supporters 
of government. Pitt himself appeared to feel that 

5 his conduct required some explanation. He left the 
treasury bench, sat for some time next to Mr. Wilber- 
force, and very earnestly declared that he had found 
it impossible, as a man of conscience, to stand any 
longer by Hastings. The business, he said, was too 

10 bad. Mr. Wilberforce, we are bound to add, fully 
believed that his friend was sincere, and that the 
suspicions to which this mysterious affair gave rise 
were altogether unfounded. 

Those suspicions, indeed, were such as it is painful 

15 to mention. The friends of Hastings, most of whom, 
it is to be observed, generally supported the adminis- 
tration, affirmed that the motive of Pitt and Dundas 
was jealousy. Hastings was personally a favorite 
with the King. Pie was the idol of the East India 

20 Company and of its servants. If he were absolved by 
the Commons, seated among the Lords, admitted to 
the Board of Control, closely allied with the strong- 
minded and imperious Thurlow, was it not almost 
certain that he would soon draw to himself the entire 

25 management of Eastern affairs ? Was it not possible 



on WAEREK HASTINGS 167 

that he might become a formidable rival in the cabi- 
net?' It had probably got abroad that very singular 
communications had taken j)lace between Thurlow 
and Major Scott, and that, if the °First Lord of the 
Treasury was afraid to recommend Hastings for a 5 
peerage, the °Chancellor was ready to take the respon- 
sibility of that step on himself. Of all ministers, 
Pitt was the least likely to submit with patience to 
such an encroachment on his functions. If the Com- 
m(ms impeached Hastings, all danger was at an end. 10 
The proceeding, however it might terminate, would 
probably last some years. In the meantime, the 
accused person would be excluded from honors and 
pnblic employments, and could scarcely venture even 
to pay his duty at court. Such were the motives 15 
attributed by a great part of the public to the young 
minister, whose ruling passion was generally believed 
to be avarice of power. 

The "prorogation soon interrupted the discussions 
respecting Hastings. In the following year, those 20 
discussions were resumed. The charge touching the 
spoliation of the Begums was brought forward by 
Sheridan, in a speech which was so imperfectly re- 
ported that it may be said to be wholly lost, but 
which was, without doubt, the most elaborately brill- 25 



168 MACAULAY'S ESSAY 

iant of all the productions of his ingenious mind. 
The impression which it produced was such as has 
never been equalled. He sat down, not merely amidst 
cheering, but amidst the loud clapping of hands, in 

5 which the Lords below the bar and the strangers in 
the gallery joined. The excitement of the House was 
such that no other speaker could obtain a hearing; 
and the debate was adjourned. The ferment spread 
fast through the town. Within four and twenty hours, 

10 Sheridan was offered a thousand pounds for the copy- 
right of the speech, if he would himself correct it for 
the press. The impression made by this remarkable 
display of eloquence on severe and experienced crit- 
ics, whose discernment may be supposed to have been 

15 quickened by emulation, was deep and permanent. Mr. 
Windham, twenty years later, said that the speech de- 
served all its fame, and was, in spite of some faults 
of taste, such as were seldom wanting either in the 
literary or in the parliamentary performances of Sher- 

20 idan, the finest that had been delivered within the 
memory of man. Mr. Fox, about the same time, 
being asked by the late Lord Holland what was the 
best speech ever made in the House of Commons, 
assigned the first place, without hesitation, to the 

25 great oration of Sheridan on the Oude charge. 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 1G9- 

When tiie debate was resumed, the tide ran so 
strongly against the accused that his friends were 
coughed and scraped down. Pitt declared himself for 
Sheridan's motion ; and the question was carried by 
a hundred and seventy-five votes against sixty-eight. 5 
- The Opposition, flushed with victory and strongly 
supported by the public sympathy, proceeded to bring 
forward a succession of charges relating chiefly to 
pecuniary transactions. The friends of Hastings 
were discouraged, and having now no hope of being 10 
able to avert an impeachment, were not very strenu- 
ous in their exertions. At length the House, having 
agreed to twenty articles of charge, directed Burke to 
go before the Lords, and to impeach the late Governor- 
General of High Crimes and Misdemeanors. Hastings 15 
was at the same time arrested by the Serjeant-at-arms, 
and carried to the bar of the Peers. 

The session was now within ten days of its close. 
It was, therefore, impossible that any progress could 
be made in the trial till the next year. Hastings was 20 
admitted to bail ; and further proceedings were post- 
poned till the Houses should re-assemble. 

When Parliament met in the following winter, the 
Commons proceeded to elect a committee for manag- 
ing the impeachment. Burke stood at the head 5 and 25 



170 3fACAULAT'S ESSAT 

with him were associated most of the leading mem- 
bers of the Opposition. But when the name of Fran- 
cis was read a fierce contention arose. It was said 
that Francis and Hastings were notoriously on bad 

5 terms, that they had been at feud during many years, 
that on one occasion their mutual aversion had im- 
pelled them to seek each other's lives, and that it 
would be improper and indelicate to select a private 
enemy to be a public accuser. It was ursjed on the 

10 other side with great force, particularly by Mr. Wind- 
ham, that impartiality, though the first duty of a 
judge, had never been reckoned among the qualities 
of an advocate ; that in the ordinary administration 
of criminal justice among the English, the aggrieved 

15 party, the very last person who ought to be admitted 
into the jury-box, is the prosecutor; that what was 
wanted in a manager was, not that he should be free 
from bias, but that he should be able, well informed, 
energetic, and active. The ability and information 

23 of Francis were admitted; and the very animosity 
with which he was reproached, whether a virtue or a 
vice, was at least a pledge for his energy and activity. 
It seems difficult to refute these arguments. But the 
inveterate hatred borne by Francis to Hastings had 

25 excited general disgust. The House decided that 



OiV WARREK HASTIN-GS 171 

Francis should not be a manager. Pitt voted witli 
the majority, Dundas with the minority. 

In the mean time, the preparations for the trial had 
proceeded rapidly; and on the 13th of February, 1788, 
the sittings of the Court commenced. There have 5 
been spectacles more dazzling to the eye, more gor- 
geous with jewelry and cloth of gold, more attractive 
to grown-up children, than that which was then 
exhibited at Westminster ; but, perhaps, there never 
was a spectacle so well calculated to strike a highly 10 
cultivated, a reflecting, and imaginative mind. All 
the various kinds of interest which belong to the near 
and to the distant, to the present and to the past, 
were collected on one spot, and in one hour. All the 
talents and all the accomplishments which are devel- 15 
oped by liberty and civilization were now displayed, 
with every advantage that could be derived both from 
co-operation and from contrast. Every step in the 
proceedings carried the mind either backward, through 
many troubled centuries, to the days when the foun- 20 
dations of our constitution were laid ; or far away, 
over boundless seas and deserts, to dusky nations liv- 
ing under strange stars, worshipping strange gods, 
and writing strange characters from right to left. 
The °High Court of Parliament was to sit, according 25 



172 ■ MACAUL AY'S ESSAY 

to forms handed down from the days of the Plantage- 
nets, on an Englishman accused of exercising tyranny 
over the lord of the holy city of Benares, and over the 
ladies of the princely house of Oude. 

5 The place was worthy of such a trial. It was the 
great °hall of William Rufus, the hall which had 
resounded with acclamations at the inauguration of 
thirty kings, the hall which had witnessed the just 
sentence of Bacon and the just absolution of Somers, 

10 the hall where the eloquence of Strafford had for a 
moment awed and melted a victorious party inflamed 
with just resentment, the hall where Charles had con- 
fronted the High Court of Justice with the placid 
courage which has half redeemed his fame. Neither 

15 military nor civil pomp was wanting. The avenues 
were lined with grenadiers. The streets were kept 
clear by cavalry. The peers, robed in gold and 
ermine, were marshalled by the heralds under °Gar- 
ter King-at-arms. The judges in their vestments 

20 of state attended to give advice on points of law. 
Near a hundred and seventy lords, three fourths of 
the Upper House as the Upper House then was, 
walked in solemn order from their usual place of 
assembling to the tribunal. The junior Baron pres- 

25 ent led the way, George Eliott, Lord Heathfield, 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 173 

recently ennobled for Ms memorable defence of Gib- 
raltar against the fleets and armies of France and 
Spain. The long procession was closed by the Duke 
of Norfolk, Earl Marshal of the realm, by the great 
dignitaries, and by the brothers and sons of the King. 5 
Last of all came the Prince of Wales, conspicuous by 
his fine person and noble bearing. The gray old walls 
were hung with scarlet. The long galleries were 
crowded by an audience such as has rarely excited 
the fears or the emulation of an orator. There were 10 
gathered together, from all parts of a great, free, 
enlightened, and prosperous empire, grace and female 
loveliness, wit and learning, the representatives of 
every science and of every art. There were seated 
round the Queen the fair-haired young daughters of 15 
the house of Brunswick. There the Ambassadors of 
great Kings and Commonwealths gazed with admira- 
tion on a spectacle which no other country in the 
world could present. There °Siddons, in the prime of 
her majestic beauty, looked with emotion on a scene 20 
surpassing all the imitations of the stage. There 
the ^historian of the Roman Empire thought of the 
days when Cicero pleaded the cause of Sicily against 
Verres, and when, before a senate which still retained 
some show of freedom, Tacitus thundered against the 25 



174 MACAULAT^S ESSAY 

oppressor of Africa. There were seen, side by side, 
tlie ^greatest painter and the "greatest scholar of the 
age. The spectacle had allured Reynolds from tha.t 
easel which has preserved to us the thoughtful fore- 

5 heads of so many writers and statesmen, and the 
sweet smiles of so many noble matrons. It had 
induced Parr to suspend his labors in that dark and 
profound mine from which he had extracted a vast 
treasure of erudition, a treasure too often buried in 

lo the earth, too often paraded with injudicious and 
inelegant ostentation, but still precious, massive, and 
splendid. There appeared the voluptuous charms of 
her to whom the heir of the throne had in secret 
°plighted his faith. There too was she, the beautiful 

15 mother of a beautiful race, the °Saint Cecilia whose 
delicate features, lighted up by love and music, art 
has rescued from the common decay. There were 
the members of that brilliant society which quoted, 
criticised, and exchanged repartees, under the rich 

20 peacock-hangings of °Mrs. Montague. And there the 
ladies whose lips, more persuasive than those of Fox 
himself, had carried the Westminster election against 
palace and treasury, shone round °Georgiana Duchess 
of Devonshire. 

25 The Serjeants made proclamation. Hastings ad- 



OK WAEREK HASTINGS 175 

vanced to the bar, and bent liis knee. The culprit 
was indeed not unwortliy of that great presence. He 
had ruled an extensive and populous country, had 
made laws and treaties, had sent forth armies, had 
set up and pulled down princes. And in his high 5 
place he had so borne himself, that all had feared 
him, that most had loved him, and that hatred itself 
could deny him no title to glory, except virtue. He 
looked like a great man, and not like a bad man. A 
person small and emaciated, yet deriving dignity from 10 
a carriage which, while it indicated deference to the 
court, indicated also habitual self-possession and self- 
respect, a high and intellectual forehead, a brow pen- 
sive, but not gloomy, a mouth of inflexible decision, a 
face pale and worn, but serene, on which was written, 15 
as legibly as under the picture in the council-chamber 
at Calcutta, °Mens aequa in arduis ; such was the 
aspect with which the great Proconsul presented him- 
self to his judges. 

His counsel accompanied him, men all of whom 20 
were afterwards raised by their talents and learning 
to the highest posts in their profession, the bold and 
strong-minded Law, afterwards Chief Justice of the 
King's Bench ; the more humane and eloquent Dallas, 
afterwards Chief Justice of the Common Pleas; and 25 



176 ■ MACAULAY^S ESSAY--, 

Plomer who, near twenty years later, successfully con- 
ducted in the same high court the defence of Lord 
Melville, and subsequently became Vice-chancellor and 
Master of the Rolls. 

5 But neither the culprit nor his advocates attracted 
so much notice as the accusers. In the midst of the 
blaze of red drapery, a space has been fitted up with 
green benches and tables for the Commons. The 
managers, with Burke at their head, appeared in full 

10 dress. The collectors of gossip did not fail to remark 
that even Fox, generally so regardless of his appear- 
ance, had paid to the illustrious tribunal the compli- 
ment of wearing a °bag and sword. Pitt had refused 
to be one of the conductors of the impeachment ; and 

15 his commanding, copious, and sonorous eloquence was 
wanting to that great muster of various talents. Age 
and blindness had unfitted Lord North for the duties 
of a public prosecutor ; and his friends were left with- 
out the help of his excellent sense, his tact, and his 

20 urbanity. But, in spite of the absence of these two 
distinguished members of the Lower House, the box 
in which the managers stood contained an array of 
speakers such as perhaps had not appeared together 
since the great age of Athenian eloquence. There 

25 were °Fox and Sheridan, the English Demosthenes 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 177 

and the English Hyperides. There was Burke, ig- 
norant, indeed, or negligent of the art of adapting his 
reasonings and his style to the capacity and taste of 
his hearers, but in amplitude of comprehension and 
richness of imagination superior to every orator, 5 
ancient or modern. There, with eyes reverentially 
fixed on Burke, appeared the finest gentleman of the 
age, his form developed by every manly exercise, his 
face beaming with intelligence and spirit, the ingen- 
ious, the chivalrous, the high-souled Windham. Nor, 10 
though surrounded by such men, did the youngest 
manager pass unnoticed. At an age when most of 
those who distinguish themselves in life are still con- 
tending for prizes and fellowships at college, he had 
won for himself a conspicuous place in Parliament. 15 
No advantage of fortune or connection was wanting 
that could set off to the height his splendid talents 
and his unblemished honor. At twenty-three he had 
been thought worthy to be ranked with the veteran 
statesmen who appeared as the delegates of the British 20 
Commons, at the bar of the British nobility. All who 
stood at that bar, save him alone, are gone, culprit, 
advocates, accusers. To the generation which is now 
in the vigor of life, he is the sole representative of 
a great age which has passed away. But those who,, 25 



178 MACAULAY^S ESSAY 

within the last ten years, have listened with delight, 
till the °morning sun shone on the tapestries of the 
House of Lords, to the lofty and animated eloquence 
of °Charles Earl Grey, are able to form some estimate 

5 of the powers of a race of men among whom he was 
not the foremost. 

The charges and the answers of Hastings were first 
read. The ceremony occupied two whole days, and 
was rendered less tedious than it would otherwise 

lo have been b}^ the silver voice and just emphasis of 
Cowper, the clerk of the court, a near relation of the 
amiable poet. On the third day Burke rose. Four 
sittings were occupied by his opening speech, which 
was intended to be a general introduction to all the 

15 charges. With an exuberance of thought and a splen- 
dor of diction which more than satisfied the highly 
raised expectation of the audience, he described the 
character and institutions of the natives of India, 
recounted the circumstances in which the Asiatic 

20 empire of Britain had originated, and set forth the 
constitution of the Company and of the English 
Presidencies. Having thus attempted to communi- 
cate to his hearers an idea of Eastern society, as 
vivid as that which existed in his own mind, he pro- 

25 ceeded to arraign the administration of Hastings as 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 179 

systematically conducted in defiance of morality and 
public law. The energy and pathos of the great 
orator extorted expressions of unwonted admiration 
from tlie stern and hostile Chancellor, and, for a 
moment, seemed to pierce even the resolute heart of 5 
the defendant. The ladies in the galleries, unaccus- 
tomed to such displays of eloquence, excited by the 
solemnity of the occasion, and perhaps not unwilling 
to display their °taste and sensibility, were in a state 
of uncontrollable emotion. Handkerchiefs were pulled 10 
out; smelling-bottles were handed round; hysterical 
sobs and screams were heard ; and Mrs. Sheridan was 
carried out in a tit. At length the orator concluded. 
Raising his voice till the old arches of Irish oak 
resounded, " Therefore," said he, " hath it with all 15 
confidence been ordered by the Commons of Great 
Britain, that I impeach Warren Hastings of high 
crimes and misdemeanors. 1 impeach him in the 
name of the Commons' House of Parliament, whose 
trust he has betrayed. I impeach him in the name 20 
of the English nation, whose ancient honor he has 
sullied. I impeach him in the name of the people, 
of India, whose rights he has trodden under foot, and 
whose country he has turned into a desert. Lastly, in 
the name of human nature itself, in the name of both 25 



180 MACAULAY'S ESSAY 

sexes, in the name of every age, in the name of every 
rank, I impeach the common enemy and oppressor of 
all ! " 

AVhen the deep murmur of various emotions had 
5 subsided, Mr. Fox rose to address the Lords respect- 
ing the course of proceeding to be followed. The wish 
of the accusers was that the Court would bring to a 
close the investigation of the first charge before the 
second was opened. The wish of Hastings and of his 

lo counsel was that the managers should open all the 
charges, and produce all the evidence for the prosecu- 
tion, before the defence began. The Lords retire^ 
to their own House to consider the question. Thfp 
Chancellor took the side of Hastings. Lord Lough-' 

15 borough, who was now in opposition, supported the 
demand of the managers. The division showed which 
way the inclination of the tribunal leaned. A major- 
ity of near three to one decided in favor of the course 
for which Hastings contended. 

20 When the Court sat again, Mr. Fox, assisted by Mr. 
Grey, opened the charge respecting Cheyte Sing, and 
several days were spent in reading papers and hearing 
witnesses. The next article was that relating to the 
Princesses of Oude. The conduct of this part of the 

25 case was intrusted to Sheridan. The curiosity ol 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 181 

the public to hear him was unbounded. His spark- 
ling and highly finished declamation lasted two days ; 
but the Hall was crowded to suffocation during the 
whole time. It was said that fifty guineas had been 
paid for a single ticket. Sheridan, when he con- 5 
eluded, contrived, with a knowledge of stage effect 
which his father might have envied, to sink back, as 
if exhausted, into the arms of Burke, who hugged 
him with the energy of generous admiration. 

June was now far advanced. The session could not 10 
last much longer 5 and the progress which had been 
made in the impeachment was not very satisfactory. 
There were twenty charges. On two only of these 
nad even the case for the prosecution been heard; and 
it was now a year since Hastings had been admitted 15 
to bail. 

The interest taken by the public in the trial was 
great when the Court began to sit, and rose to the 
< leight when Sheridan spoke on the charge relating to 
the Begums. . From that time the excitement went 20 
down fast. The spectacle had lost the attraction of 
novelty. The great displays of rhetoric were over. 
What was behind was not of a nature to entice men 
of letters from their books in the morning, or to tempt 
ladies who had left the masquerade at two to be out 25 



182 MACAULAY'S ESSAY 

of bed before eight. There remained examinations 
and cross-examinations. There remained statements 
of accounts. There remained the reading of papers, 
filled with words unintelligible to English ears, with 
5 lacs and crores, zemindars and aumils, sunnuds and 
perwannahs, jaghires and nuzzurs. There remained 
bickerings, not always carried on with the best taste 
or with the best temper, between the managers of the 
impeachment and the counsel for the defence, particu- 

lo larly between Mr. Burke and Mr. Law. There re- 
mained the endless marches and countermarches of 
the Peers between their House and the Hall ; for as 
often as a point of law was to be discussed, their Lord- 
ships retired to discuss it apart ; and the consequence 

15 was, as a Peer wittily said, that the judges walked and 
the trial stood still. 

It is to be added that, in the spring of 1788, when 
the trial commenced, no important question, either of 
domestic or foreign policy, occupied the public mind. 

20 The proceeding in Westminster Hall, therefore, natu- 
rally attracted most of the attention of Parliament 
and of the country. It was the one great event of 
that season. But in the following year the King's 
illness, the debates on the Regency, the expectation 

25 of a change of ministry, completely diverted public 



02r WARRJEM HASTINGS 183 

attention from Indian affairs ; and within a fortnight 
after George the Third had returned thanks in St. 
Paul's for his recovery, the States-General of France 
met at Versailles. In the midst of the agitation pro- 
duced by these events, the impeachment was for a 5 
time almost forgotten. 

The trial in the Hall went on languidly. In the 
session of 1788, when the proceedings had the interest 
of novelty, and when the Peers had little other busi- 
ness before them, only thirty-five days were given to 10 
the impeachment. In 1789, the Eegency Bill occupied 
the Upper House till the session was far advanced. 
When the King recovered the circuits were beginning. 
The judges left town ; the Lords waited tor the return 
of the oracles of jurisprudence ; and the consequence 15 
was that during the whole year only seventeen days 
were given to the case of Hastings. It was clear that 
the matter would be protracted to a length unprece- 
dented in the annals of criminal law. 

In truth, it. is impossible to deny that impeachment, 20 
though it is a fine ceremony, and though it may have 
been useful in the seventeenth century, is not a pro- 
ceeding from which much good can now be expected. 
Whatever confidence ma.y be placed in the decision of 
the Peers on an appeal arising out of ordinary litiga- 25 



184 MACAULAY^S ESSAY 

tion, it is certain that no man has the least confidence 
in their impartiality, when a great public functionary, 
charged with a great state crime, is brought to their 
bar. They are all politicians. There is hardly one 

5 among them whose vote on an impeachment may not 
be confidently predicted before a witness has been 
examined; and, even if it were possible to rely on 
their justice, they would still be quite unfit to try such a 
cause as that of Hastings. They sit only during half 

lo the year. They have to transact much legislative and 
much judicial business. The law-lords, whose advice 
is required to guide the unlearned majority, are 
employed daily in administering justice elsewhere. 
It is impossible, therefore, that during a busy session,, 

15 the Upper House should give more than a few days to^ 
an impeachment. To expect that their Lordships would 
give up partridge-shooting, in order to bring the great- 
est delinquent to speedy justice, or to relieve accused 
innocence by speedy acquittal, would be unreasonable 

20 indeed. A well-constituted tribunal, sitting regularly 
six days in the week, and nine hours in the day,, 
would have brought the trial of Hastings to a close in 
less than three months. The Lords had not finished, 
their work in seven years. 

25 The result ceased to be a matter of doubt, from th© 



OK WARREN HASTINGS 185 

time when the Lords resolved that they would be 
guided by the rules of evidence which are received in 
the inferior courts of the realm. Those rules, it is 
well known, exclude much information which would 
be quite sufficient to determine the conduct of any 5 
reasonable man, in the most important transactions of 
private life. These rules, at every assizes, save scores 
of culprits whom judges, jury, and spectators firmly 
believe to be guilty. But when those rules were 
rigidly applied to offences committed many years 10 
before, at the distance of many thousands of miles, 
conviction was, of course, out of the question. We do 
not blame the accused and his counsel for availing 
themselves of every legal advantage in order to obtain 
an acquittal. Bat it is clear that an acquittal so 15 
obtained cannot be pleaded in bar of the judgment 
of history. 

Several attempts were made by the friends of Hast- 
ings to put a stop to the trial. In 1789 they proposed 
a vote of censure upon Burke, for some violent lao- 20 
guage which he had used respecting the death of 
Kuncomar and the connection between Hastings and 
Impey. Burke was then "unpopular in the last degree 
both with the House and with the country. The 
asperity and indecency of some expressions which he 25 



186 MAC AUL AY'S ESS AT 

had used during the debates on the Regency had 
annoyed even his warmest friends. The vote of cen- 
sure was carried ; and those who had moved it hoped 
that the managers would resign in disgust. Burke was 

5 deeply hurt. Rut his zeal for what he considered as 
the cause of justice and mercy triumphed over his per- 
sonal feelings. He received the censure of the House 
with dignity and meekness, and declared that no per- 
sonal mortihcation or humiliation should induce him to 

10 flinch from the sacred duty which he had undertaken. 

In the following year the Parliament was dissolved ; 

and the friends of Hastings entertained a hope that the 

new House of Commons might not be disposed to go 

on with the impeachment. They began by maintain- 

15 ing that the whole proceeding was terminated by the 
dissolution. Defeated on this point, they made a direct 
motion that the impeachment should be dropped; but 
they were defeated by the combined forces of the Gov- 
ernment and the Opposition. It was, however, resolved 

20 that, for the sake of expedition, many of the articles 
should be withdrawn. In truth, had not some such 
measure been adopted, the trial would have lasted till 
the defendant was in his grave. 

At length, in the spring of 1795, the decision was 

25 pronounced; near eight years after Hastings had been 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 187 

brought by tbe Serjeant-at-arms of the Commons to the 
bar of the Lords. On the last day of this great pro- 
cedure the public curiosity, long suspended, seemed 
to be revived. Anxiety about the judgment there 
could be none ; for it had been fully ascertained that 5 
there was a great majority for the defendant. Never- 
theless many wished to see the pageant, and the Hall 
was as much crowded as on the first day. But those 
who, having been present on the first day, now bore a 
part in the proceedings of the last, were few ; and most 10 
of those few were altered men. 

As Hastings himself said, the arraignment had taken 
place before one generation, and the judgment was pro- 
nounced by another. The spectator could not look at 
the woolsack, or at the red benches of the Peers, or 15 
at the green benches of the Commons, without seeing 
something that reminded him of the instability of all 
human things, of the instability of power and fame 
and life, of the more lamentable instability of friend- 
ship. The great seal was borne before Lord Lough- 20 
borough, who, when the trial commenced, was a fierce 
opponent of Mr. Pitt's government, and who was now 
a member of that government, while Thurlow, who 
presided in the court when it first sat, estranged from 
all his old allies, sat scowling among the junior barons, 25 



188 MACAULAY^S ESSAY 

Of about a hundred and sixty nobles who walked in 
the procession on the first day, sixty had been laid 
in their family vaults. Still more affecting must 
have been the sight of the managers' box. What 

5 had become of that fair fellowship, so closely bound 
together by public and private ties, so resplendent 
with every talent and accomplishment ? It had been 
scattered by calamities more bitter than the bitterness 
of death. The great chiefs were still living, and still 

10 in the full vigor of their genius. But their friendship 
was at an end. It had been violently and publicly 
dissolved, with tears and stormy reproaches. If 
those men, once so dear to each other, were now 
compelled to meet for the purpose of managing the 

15 impeachment, they met as strangers whom public 
business had brought together, and behaved to each 
other with cold and distant civility. Burke had in 
his vortex whirled away Windham. Fox had been 
followed by Sheridan and Grey. 

20 Only twenty-nine Peers voted. Of these only six 
found Hastings guilty on the charges relating to 
Cheyte Sing and to the Begums. On other charges, 
the majority in his favor was still greater. On some 
he was unanimously absolved. He was then called 

25 to the bar, was informed from the woolsack that the 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 189 

Lords had acquitted him, and was solemnly discharged. 
He bowed respectfully and retired. 

We have said that the decision had been fully 
expected. It was also generally approved. At the 
commencement of the trial there had been a strong 5 
and indeed unreasonable feeling against Hastings. 
At the close of the trial there was a feeling equally 
strong and equally unreasonable in his favor. One 
cause of the change was, no doubt, what is commonly 
called the fickleness of the multitude, but what seems 10 
to us to be merely the general law of human nature. 
Both in individuals and in masses violent excitement 
is always followed by remission, and often by reaction. 
We are all inclined to depreciate whatever we have 
overpraised, and, on the other hand, to show undue 15 
indulgence where we have shown undue rigor. It was 
thus in the case of Hastings. The length of his trial, 
moreover, made him an object of compassion. It was 
thought, and not without reason, that, even if he was 
guilty, he was still an ill-used man, and that an im- 20 
peachment of eight years was more than a sufficient 
punishment. It was also felt that, though, in the 
ordinary course of criminal law, a defendant is not 
allowed to set off his good actions against his crimes, 
a great political cause should be tried on different 25 



190 MACAULAT'S ESSAY 

principles, and that a man who had governed an em- 
pire during thirteen years might have done some very 
reprehensible things, and yet might be on the whole 
deserving of rewards and honors rather than of fine 
5 and imprisonment. The press, an instrument neg- 
lected by the prosecutors, was used by Hastings and 
his friends w^ith great effect. Every ship, too, that 
arrived from Madras or Bengal, brought a cuddy full 
of his admirers. Every gentleman from India spoke 

lo of the late Governor-General as having deserved better, 
and having been treated worse, than any man living. 
The effect of this testimony unanimously given by all 
persons who knew the East, was naturally very great. 
Retired members of the Indian services, civil and 

15 military, were settled in all corners of the kingdom. 
Each of them was, of course, in his own little circle, 
regarded as an oracle on an Indian question ; and they 
were, with scarcely one exception, the zealous advo- 
cates of Hastings. It is to be added, that the numer- 

-^ ous addresses to the late Governor-General, which his 
friends in Bengal obtained from the natives and trans- 
mitted to England, made a considerable impression. 
To these addresses we attach little or no importance. 
That Hastings was beloved by the people whom he 

25 governed is true ; but the eulogies of pundits, zemin- 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 191 

dars, Mahommedan doctors, do not prove it to be true. 
For an English collector or judge would have found 
it easy to induce any native who could write to sign 
a panegyric on the most odious ruler that ever was 
in India. It was said that at Benares, the very place 5 
at which the acts set forth in the first article of 
impeachment had been committed, the natives had 
erected a temple to Hastings ; and this story excited 
a strong sensation in England. Burke's observations 
on the apotheosis were admirable. He saw no reason 10 
for astonishment, he said, in the incident which had 
been represented as so striking. He knew something 
of the mythology of the Brahmins. He knew that 
as they worshipped some gods from love, so they 
worshipped others from fear. He knew that they 15 
erected shrines, not only to the benignant deities of 
light and plenty, but also to the fiends who preside 
over smallpox and murder ; nor did he at all dispute 
the claim of Mr. Hastings to be admitted into such 
a Pantheon. ■ This reply has always struck us as one 20 
of the finest that ever was made in Parliament. It is 
a grave and forcible argument, decorated by the most 
brilliant wit and fancy. 

Hastings was, however, safe. But in every thing 
except character, he would have been far better off if, 25 



192 MACAULAY'S ESSAY 

when first impeached, he had at once pleaded guilty, 
and paid a fine of fifty thousand pounds. He was a 
ruined man. The legal expenses of his defence had 
been enormous. The expenses which did not appear 

5 in his attorney's bill were perhaps larger still. Great 
sums had been paid to Major Scott. Great sums had 
been laid out in bribing newspapers, rewarding pam- 
phleteers, and circulating tracts. Burke, so early as 
1790, declared in the House of Commons that twenty 

10 thousand pounds had been employed in corrupting the 
press. It is certain that no controversial weapon, 
from the gravest reasoning to the coarsest ribaldry, 
was left unemployed. Logan defended the accused 
Governor with great ability in prose. For the lovers 

15 of verse, the speeches of the managers were burlesqued 
in Simpkin's letters. It is, we are afraid, indisput- 
able that Hastings stooped so low as to court the aid 
of that malignant and filthy baboon John Williams, 
who called himself ° Anthony Pasquin. It was neces- 

20 sary to subsidize such allies largely. The private 
hoards of Mrs. Hastings had disappeared. It is said 
that the banker to whom they had been intrusted had 
failed. Still if Hastings had practised strict economy 
he would, after all his losses, have had a moderate 

25 competence ; but in the management of his private 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 193 

affairs he was imprudent. The dearest wish of his 
heart had always been to regain Daylesford. At 
length, in the very year in which his trial commenced^ 
the wish was accomplished ; and the domain, alienated 
more than seventy years before, returned to the de- 5 
scendant of its old lords. But the manor house was 
a ruin ; and the grounds round it had, during many 
years, been utterly neglected. Hastings proceeded to 
build, to plant, to form a sheet of water, to excavate 
a grotto ; and, before he was dismissed from the bar 10 
of the House of Lords, he had expended more than 
forty thousand pounds in adorning his seat. 

The general feeling both of the Directors and of 
the proprietors of the East India Company was that 
he had great claims on them, that his services to them 15 
had been eminent, and that his misfortunes had been 
the effect of his zeal for their interest. His friends 
in Leadenhall Street proposed to reimburse him the 
costs of his trial, and to settle on him an annuity of 
five thousand pounds a year. But the consent of the 20 
Board of Control was necessary ; and at the head of 
the Board of Control was Mr. Dundas, who had him- 
self been a party to the impeachment, who had, on 
that account, been reviled with great bitterness by the 
adherents of Hastings, and who, therefore, was not in 25 
o 



194 MACAULAY^S ESS AT 

a very complying mood. He refused to consent to 
what the Directors suggested. The Directors remon- 
strated. A long controversy followed. Hastings, in 
the mean time, was reduced to such distress, that he 

5 could hardly pay his weekly bills. At length a com- 
promise was made. An annuity for life of four thou- 
sand pounds was settled on Hastings ; and in order to 
enable him to meet pressing demands, he was to receive 
ten years' annuity in advance. The Company was 

10 also permitted to lend him fifty thousand pounds, to 
be repaid by instalments without interest. This relief, 
though given in the most absurd manner, was suffi- 
cient to enable the retired Governor to live in com- 
fort, and even in luxury, if he had been a skilful 

15 manager. But he was careless and profuse, and was 
more than once under the necessity of applying to the 
Company for assistance, which was liberally given. 

He had securitj^ and affluence, but not the power 
and dignity which, when he landed from India, he had 

20 reason to expect. He had then looked forward to a 
coronet, a red riband, a seat at the Council Board, 
an office at Whitehall. He wcs then only hfty-two, 
and might hope for many years of bodily and mental 
vigor. The case was widely different when he left the 

25 bar of the Lords. He was now too old a man to turn 



ON^ WARREN HASTINGS 195 

his mind to a new class of studies and duties. He had 
no chance of receiving any mark of royal favor while 
Mr. Pitt remained in power; and, when Mr. °Pitt 
retired, Hastings was approaching his seventieth year. 

Once, and only once, after his acquittal, he inter- 5 
fered in politics ; and that interference was not much 
to his honor. In 1804 he exerted himself strenuously 
to prevent Mr. °Addington, against whom Fox and 
Pitt had combined, from resigning the Treasury. It 
is difficult to believe that a man so able and energetic 10 
as Hastings can have thought that, when Bonaparte 
was at Boulogne with a great army, the defence of our 
island could safely be intrusted to a ministry which 
did not contain a single person whom flattery could 
describe as a great statesman. It is also certain that, 15 
on the important question which had raised Mr. Ad- 
dington to power, and on which he differed from both 
Pox and Pitt, Hastings, as might have been expected, 
agreed with Fox and Pitt, and was decidedly opposed 
to Addington, Religious intolerance has never been 20 
the vice of the Indian service, and certainly was not 
the vice of Hastings. Bat Mr. Addington had treated 
him with marked favor. Fox had been a principal 
manager of the impeachment. To Pitt it was owing 
that there had been an impeachment j and Hastings, 25 



196 MACAULAY^S ESSAY 

we fear, was on this occasion guided by personal con- 
siderations, rather than by a regard to the public 
interest. 

The last twenty-four years of his life were chiefly 
5 passed at Daylesford. He amused himself with em- 
bellishing his grounds, riding fine Arab horses, fatten- 
ing prize-cattle, and trying to rear Indian animals and- 
vegetables in England. He sent for seeds of a very 
fine custard-apple, from the garden of what had once 

lo been his own villa, among the green hedgerows of 
Allipore. He tried also to naturalize in Worcester- 
shire the delicious leechee, almost the only fruit of 
Bengal which deserves to be regretted even amidst 
the plenty of Covent Garden. The Mogul emperors, 

15 in the time of their greatness, had in vain attempted 
to introduce into Hindostan the goat of the table-land 
of Thibet, whose down supplies the looms of Cash- 
mere with the materials of the finest shawls. Hast- 
ings tried, with no better fortune, to rear a breed at 

20 Daylesford; nor does he seem to have succeeded 
better with the cattle of Bootan, whose tails are in 
high esteem as the best fans for brushing away the 
mosquitoes. 

Literature divided his attention with his conserva- 

25 tories and his menagerie. He had always loved books, 



OM WARREN HASTINGS 197 

and they were now necessary to him. Though not a 
poet, in any high sense of the word, he wrote neat and 
polished lines with great facility, and was fond of 
exercising this talent. Indeed, if we must speak out, 
he seems to have been more of a Trissotin than was 5 
to be expected from the powers of his mind, and from 
the great part which he had played in life. We are 
assured in these Memoirs that the first thing which 
he did in the morning was to write a copy of verses. 
When the family and guests assembled, the poem 10 
made its appearance as regularly as the eggs and 
rolls; and Mr. Gleig requires us to believe that, if 
from any accident Hastings came to the breakfast- 
table without one of his charming performances in his 
hand, the omission was felt by all as a grievous disap- 15 
pointment. Tastes differ widely. For ourselves, we 
must say that, however good the breakfasts at Dayles- 
f ord may have been, — and we are assured that the 
tea was of the most aromatic flavor, and that neither 
tongue nor venison-pasty was wanting, — we should 20 
have thought the reckoning high if we had been 
forced to earn our repast by listening every day to a 
new madrigal or sonnet composed by our host. We 
are glad, however, that Mr. Gleig has preserved this 
little feature of character, though we think it by no 25 



198 MACAULAY^S ESSAY 

means a beauty. It is good to be often reminded of 
the inconsistency of human nature, and to learn to 
look without wonder or disgust on the weaknesses 
which are found in the strongest minds. Dionysius 
5 in old timeSj Frederic in the last century, with capacity 
and vigor equal to the conduct of the greatest affairs, 
united all the little vanities and affectations of pro- 
vincial blue-stockings. These great examples may 
console the admirers of Hastings for the affliction of 

lo seeing him reduced to the level of the Hayleys and 
Sewards. 

When Hastings had passed many years in retire- 
ment, and had long outlived the common age of men, 
he again became for a short time an object of general 

15 attention. In 1813 the charter of the East India 
Company was renewed ; and much discussion about 
Indian affairs took place in Parliament. It was deter- 
mined to examine witnesses at the bar of the Com- 
mons ; and Hastings was ordered to attend. He had 

20 appeared at that bar once before. It was when he 
read his answer to the charges which Burke had laid 
on the table. Since that time twenty-seven years had 
elapsed; public feeling had undergone a complete 
change ; the nation had now forgotten his faults, and 

25 remembered only his services. The reappearance, 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 199 

too, of a man who had been among the most distin- 
guished of a generation that had passed away, who 
now belonged to history, and who seemed to have 
risen from the dead, could not but produce a solemn 
and pathetic effect. The Commons received him with 5 
acclamations, ordered a chair to be set for him, and, 
when he retired, rose and uncovered. There were, 
indeed, a few who did not sympathize with the gen 
eral feeling. One or two of the managers of the 
impeachment were present. They sate in the same 10 
seats which they had occupied when they had been 
thanked for the services which they had rendered in 
Westminster Hall ; for, by the courtesy of the House, 
a member who has been thanked in his place is con- 
sidered as having a right always to occupy that place. 15 
These gentlemen were not disposed to admit that 
they had employed several of the best years of their 
lives in persecuting an innocent man. They accord- 
ingly kept their seats, and pulled their hats over their 
brows ; but the exceptions only made the prevailing 20 
enthusiasm more remarkable. The Lords received the 
old man with similar tokens of respect. The Univer- 
sity of Oxford conferred on him the degree of Doctor 
of Laws; and in the Sheldonian Theatre the under- 
graduates welcomed him with tumultuous cheering. 25 



200 MAC AULA Y'S ESSAY 

These marks of public esteem were soon followed 
by marks of royal favor. Hastings was sworn of the 
Privy Council, and was admitted to a long private 
audience of the Prince Regent, who treated him very 

5 graciously. When the Emperor of Russia and the 
King of Prussia visited England, Hastings a]3peared 
in their train both at Oxford and in the Guildhall of 
London, and, though surrounded by a crowd of princes 
and great warriors, was every where received with 

10 marks of respect and admiration. He was presented by 
the Prince Regent both to Alexander and to Frederic 
William ; and his Royal Highness went so far as to 
declare in public that honors far higher than a seat in 
the Privy Council were due, and would soon be paid, 

15 to the man who had saved the British dominions 
in Asia. Hastings now confidently expected a peer- 
age ; but from some unexplained cause, he was again 
disappointed. 

He lived about four years longer, in the enjoyment 

20 of good spirits, of faculties not impaired to any pain- 
ful or degrading extent, and of health such as is 
rarely enjoyed by those who attain such an age. At 
length, on the twenty-second of August 1818, in the 
eighty-sixth year of his age, he met death with the 

25 same tranquil and decorous fortitude which he had 



ON WARREN HASTINGS 201 

opposed to all the trials of his various and eventful 
life. 

With all his faults, — and they were neither few nor 
small, — only one cemetery was worthy to contain his 
remains. In that temple of silence and reconciliation 5 
where the enmities of twenty generations lie buried, 
in the Great Abbey which has during many ages 
afforded a quiet resting-place to those whose minds 
and bodies have been shattered by the contentions of 
the Great Hall, the dust of the illustrious accused 10 
should have mingled with the dust of the ' illustrious 
accusers. This was not to be. Yet the place of inter- 
ment was not ill chosen. Behind the chancel of the 
parish church of Daylesford, in earth which already 
held the bones of many chiefs of the house of Hast- 15 
ings, was laid the coffin of the greatest man who has 
ever borne that ancient and widely extended name. 
On that very spot probably, fourscore years before, 
the little Warren, meanly clad and scantily fed, had 
played with the children of ploughmen. Even then 20 
his young mind had revolved plans which might be 
called romantic. Yet, however romantic, it is not 
likely that they had been so strange as the truth. 
Not only had the poor orphan retrieved the fallen 
fortunes of his line. Not only had he repurchased 25 



202 MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON WARREN HASTINGS 

the old lands, and rebuilt the old dwelling. He had 
preserved and extended an empire. He had founded 
a polity. He had administered government and war 
with more than the capacity of Kichelieu. He had 

5 patronized learning with the judicious liberality of 
Cosmo. He had been attacked by the most formidable 
combination of enemies that ever sought the destruc- 
tion of a single victim ; and over that combination, 
after a struggle of ten years, he had triumphed. He 

10 had at length gone down to his grave in the fulness 
of age, in peace, after so many troubles, in honor, after 
so much obloquy. 

Those who look on his character without favor or 
malevolence will pronounce that, in the two great 

15 elements of all social virtue, in respect for the rights 
of others, and in sympathy for the sufferings of others, 
he was deficient. His principles were somewhat lax. 
His heart was somewhat hard. But though we cannot 
with truth describe him either as a righteous or as a 

20 merciful ruler, we cannot regard without admiration 
the amplitude and fertility of his intellect, his rare 
talents for command, for administration, and for con- 
troversy, his dauntless courage, his honorable poverty, 
his fervent zeal for the interests of the state, his noble 

25 equanimity, tried by both extremes of fortune, and 
never disturbed by either. 



NOTES 



This essay was first published in the Edi7iburgh Beview in 
October, 1841, three years after Macaulay's return from India. 
It is nominally a review of a book that had appeared. Memoirs 
of the Life of Warren Hastings, first Governor General of Ben- 
gal. Compiled from Original Papers by the Rev. G. R. Gleig, 
M.A. 3 vols. London, 1841. Macaulay's opinion of Mr. 
Gleig's book, written to the editor of the Beview, is, "I think 
the new Life of Hastings the worst book that I ever saw." 

Throughout the essay, this opinion of Mr. Gleig's history keeps 
cropping out, in such passages as, ' ' everybody believes, idiots 
and biographers excepted." 

Macaulay's estimate of the importance of Warren Hastings 
as a subject was expressed to the editors of the Beview when he 
was preparing to write the article. He said he thought the sub- 
ject would bear two articles. He evidently decided when he 
began to write that the two parts would be better if combined. 
His original plan was to lay the first scene in India ; this he said 
would include the Rohilla war, disputes between Hastings and 
his council, the character of Francis, death of Nuncomar, rise 
of Hyder Ali, seizure of Benares, and so on. The second scene 
would shift to Westminster ; this would take in the Coalition, 

203 



204 NOTES [Page 1 

the India Bill, and characters of all the noted men of the time 
from " Burke to Tony Pasquin." 

Page 1, line 8. uncovered. Members of the House of Com- 
mons sit with their hats on ; to " uncover," or remove the hat, 
is a mark of honor. 

Page 3, line 8. renowned Chamberlain. William, Lord Hast- 
ings, adherent of Edward IV., beheaded by Richard III. 

*' Come, lead me to the block ; bear him my head : 
They smile at me, who shortly shall be dead." 

Shakespeare. — Richard III. III. 4. 107. 

Line 21. The Hastings. Does not this sentence tell all the 
facts ? What do we gain by Macaulay's adding the following 
sentence ? 

Line 23. mint at Oxford. At the time of the Civil War, Par- 
liament held London. Oxford being in sympathy with the 
Cavaliers was made their headquarters. To Oxford, therefore, 
those who could not send money for the cause sent their plate 
to be converted into money. 

Page 4, lines 8-11. Living, tithes. See Dictionary. 

Page 6, line 16. Churchill, Colman, Lloyd, Cumberland, Cow- 
per, all literary men of Hastings' time. Cowper is the only one 
of them whose work is still read. 

Page 7, line 6. Ouse. Cowper lived with the Unwins at 
Olney on the Ouse. No life, in its environments, could form a 
stronger contrast with that of Hastings than his does. 

Line 9. Temptations. Why does Macaulay tell us what 
Cowper was not called upon to withstand ? 



Page 9] NOTES 205 

Line 13. innocence and greatness. Is there anything unusual 
in the arrangement of the four nouns, "innocence and great- 
ness," etc. ? 

Page 8, line 3. foundation. A scholarship. 

Line 7. studentship. At Christ Church College in Oxford, 
three scholars are elected each year from Westminstershire. 
The scholarships are of the annual value of $400, and are to he 
held for two years. 

Line 20. hexameters and pentameters. In England, the study 
of Latin is begun at eight years of age, and the boy of twelve 
must write as well as read in Latin. Proficiency in the lan- 
guage is judged, largely, by the ability to write Latin verse. 

Line 21. writership in the service of the East India Company. 

In carrying on the business of the company, the merchants, 
senior and junior, conducted the trade ; the factors ordered the 
goods and attended to shipping them off ; the writers were the 
clerks and bookkeepers. By a kind of civil service, depending 
on worth and years in office, the writers could rise to mer- 
chants. The places where the company had their seats of trade 
were called factories, as the factories of Bombay, Madras, and 
Calcutta. 

Line 22. East India Company. See Introduction. 

Page 9, line 10. Dupleix. French governor of Pondicherry. 
In the Introduction there is bare mention of the events alluded 
to here because it is presupposed that Macaulay's Lord Olive 
has been read. Half of the interest of Warren Hastings will 
be lost unless Lord Olive is read first. 

Line 12. The war of the succession. Austrian succession. 



206 NOTES [Page 9 

The home governments being at war caused war between the 
French and English in India. 

Line 25. the prince. The Nabob of Bengal. 

Page 10, line 23. Black Hole of Calcutta. When Surajah 
Dowlah attacked Calcutta in June, 1756, many of the English 
were able to get away on the river, but there were not boats 
enough for all. Those who remained defended the city until 
they were overpowered. When the Nabob, Surajah Dowlah, 
saw the prisoners, he promised them that they should not be 
hurt. The guards compelled one hundred and forty-six of them 
to enter a room twenty feet square. It had only two small 
windows, and they opened on an arcade. The heat and foul 
air were intolerable. At first the prisoners fought for places at 
the windows, and implored the guards for water, but later they 
taunted and insulted the guards in the hopes of making them 
shoot into the room and so end their agony. In the morn- 
ing only twenty-three were alive. Surajah Dowlah may not 
have been responsible for this, but his later treatment of the 
survivors was not any more humane. 

Page 11, line 7. treason. Meer Jaffier was a rival claimant 
for the Nabobship. When Clive arrived in Bengal he espoused 
Meer Jaffier's cause. Clive defeated Surajah Dowlah, Nabob 
of Bengal, at Plassey in 1757 and placed Meer Jafl&er on the 
viceregal throne at Moorshedabad as Nabob of Bengal. The 
Great Mogul at Delhi was the nominal head, but the Nabob 
was really independent. 

Page 12, line 3. He remained at Moorshedabad. What argu- 
ment has Macaulay used to show Hastings' honesty at this 
time? 



Page 18] NOTES 207 

Line 9. Mr. Vansittart. Governor of Bengal from 1760 to 
1764, between Olive's first and second governorships- 
Page 13, line 24. to marry a peer's daughter. Would a 
simple statement, that the agent's sole object was to get rich 
so that he might return to England to enjoy life, be as effective 
as this sentence ? Why ? 

Line 24. rotten boroughs. See Life of Macaulay in Intro- 
duction, and note on Old Sarum. 

Page 14, line 7. It is certain that. What two devices of 
expression has Macaulay used from this to the end of the para- 
graph ? Are they favorites with this master of style ? 

Line 16. keen, severe, malevolent. Discriminate between 
these words. In the following paragraph is there any relation 
between the words squeamish and rapacious that makes them 
good antonyms ? 

Page 15, line 10. In 1764 Hastings returned to England. 

This and the two following paragraphs begin with short, simple 
sentences. In what relation do the other sentences in the para- 
graphs stand to the beginning ones ? 

Page 16, line 19. Hafiz and Ferdusi. Classic Persian poets. 

Page 17, line 24. pagoda. The word here means a gold coin 
which has a pagoda stamped on it. Value, |1.94. 

Page 18, line 13. Indiaman. Name given to the ships for 
India. The voyage at this time was long. The ships went 
round the Cape of Good Hope. It took Clive a year to make 
his first voyage from England to India. 



208 NOTES [Page 19 

Page 19, line 6. genuine. What is the root of the word ? 

Page 21, line 16. There were two governments. At the 
battle of Baxar in 1764, Oude was taken from the Nabob Vizier. 
Clive on entering his second Governorship of India in 1765 re- 
stored Oude to the Nabob Vizier on condition of his paying 
half a million sterling. Allahabad and Corah, provinces lying 
between the Ganges and Jumna rivers, were given to Shah 
Alam, the Great Mogul, on condition that they be used to 
protect Bengal from the Mahrattas ; in return Shah Alam 
granted the fiscal administration of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa 
to the English. The English were to collect all the revenues of 
these provinces, send about £300,000 as tribute to the Mogul, 
and give £600,000 to the Nabob of Bengal at Moorshedabad. 
But the political and judicial administration was left in the 
hands of the Nabob of Bengal. In Indian terms the Company 
was diwan, and the Nabob was nizam. This constituted the 
double system devised by Clive. Even in carrying out the Com- 
pany's part of this dual system, Clive did not put a servant of 
the Company in as collector of the revenues ; instead he made 
a native, Mahommed Reza Khan, the minister of finance. 

Page 22, line 8. Augustulus. The last Roman Emperor of 
the West. See Roman history. Analogous cases, because the 
real rulers pretended to bow to the nominal rulers. Merovin- 
gians. See history of France or Century Cyclopedia of Names. 

Line 19. At present the Governor. Macaulay is describing 
the government of India at the time of this essay, 1841. See 
PiWs Bill in Introduction. For present government, see In- 
troduction. 



Page 27] NOTES 209 

Page 24, line 23. important, lucrative, splendid. Discrim- 
inate between meanings of the words. 

Page 25, line 4. Khan, Persian, king. 

Line 11. Hindoo Brahmin, ^qq Introduction. The spelling 
in the Introduction is that in more common usage, Hindu 
Brahman. The great river of western India was originally the 
Ind or Hind or Indus ; and the people are the people of the 
Indus, that is, the Hindus. Brahmin is from the name of 
the Hindu god, Brahma. 

Line 14. Maharajah. Hind., Eajah, king, allied to Latin 
rex. Maharajah, great king. At the time that Clive chose 
Mahommed Reza Khan for minister, the Nabob had urged that 
Nuncomar be chosen ; but Nuncomar had been suspected of 
treachery to the English in 1764 while he was Meer Jaffier's 
prime minister. Shortly after Clive had appointed Reza Khan, 
Nuncomar was imprisoned at Calcutta on discovery of proofs of 
his correspondence with Sujah Dowlah while that king was 
marching against the English at Behar. Both Clive and Has- 
tings knew of his treachery. 

Page 26, line 23. sepoy. A Hindu or Mohammedan soldier 
in the British army. 

Page 27, line 16. Mucins. "When Mucins was threatened 
with torture by Lars Porsenna he thrust his hand into the flame 
to show what a Roman could endure. 

Line 18. Algernon Sidney. Convicted on insufficient evi- 
dence of complicity in the Rye House Plot. Died like a phi- 
losopher. 



210 NOTES [Page 29 

Page 29, line 22. Directors. The administration of the Com- 
pany's affairs was in the hands of twenty -four Directors, elected 
annually by the Proprietors. The supreme control was in 
the Court of Proprietors, because they made all the laws and 
regulations and elected the Directors. The Courts of Directors 
regulated the commercial and political transactions of the Com- 
pany, subject to interference by the Proprietors. It required 
the possession of £500 of the Company's stock to become a 
Proprietor, and £2000 of the Company's stock before a man 
could be chosen as a Director. The Crown at this time exercised 
no direct control ; but as many of the Proprietors and Directors 
were members of Parliament the interests of the Company were 
not neglected. The Regulating Act of 1773, and Pitt's India 
Bill of 1784, changed the constitution of the Company. See 
Mill and Wilson's History of India ^ Vol. III., Book IV., Chaps. 
I. and IX., and Vol. IV., Book V., Chap. IX. 

Page 30, line 3. Leadenhall Street. The old India House 
was on Leadenhall Street, London. 

Page 35, line 4. Teviotdale. See Scott's Lay of Last Min- 
strel. Scott gives motto of the Cranstouns in his explanation 
of the Cranstoun coat of arms. 

Page 36, line 24. sermons and rupees. Is the figure strong ? 
A rupee looks like a silver half-dollar, and is worth about the 
same amount. 

Page 37, line 11. Corah and Allahabad. For the agreement, 
see note on page 208. However, matters were now altered. The 
Great Mogul, Shah Alam, had fallen into the hands of the 
Mahrattas, the very enemies from which he had promised to 



Page 48] NOTES 211 

protect the English through his possession of these two prov- 
inces, so there seems no reason why he should he allowed to 
keep the provinces or receive the promised revenue any longer. 
The revenue, Hastings asserted, would go straight to the Mah- 
rattas if given to Shah Alam. 

Line 21. general dissolution. See Introduction. 

Line 25. assumed the royal title. In 1819, twenty years be- 
fore this essay was written, the Nabob Vizier of Oude assumed 
the title of Shah, king. This province was loyal to the Eng- 
lish, and was protected by them ; but the Dowlahs grew 
tyrannical to their people and allowed their territory to lie 
uncultivated, so in 1856 Lord Dalhousie annexed Oude as a 
British province. 

Page 39, line 15. Ghizni. English victory over the Afghans 
in 1839. 

Line 24. Rohillas. Afghan Mohammedans who had settled in 
the foothills and mountains northwest of Oude. Like other 
Mohammedan tribes, they had sometimes fought with the 
Mahrattas and sometimes against them. Whatever may be 
said of Sujah Dowlah's plea that the Rohillas had not kept 
faith with him, Macaulay is surely right in saying that Hastings 
understood what would happen to the Rohillas when he left 
them at Sujah Dowlah's mercy. 

Page 40, line 5. Aurungzebe. See Introduction, p. xlvi. 

Page 48, line 2, the Regulating Act. An Act of Parliament 
in 1773 which gave greater political power to the Company, and 
changed the form of government in India. Its chief provisions 
are in the text. 



212 NOTES [Page 49 

Page 49, line 9. Letters of Junius. This was a series of 
letters against George III. and his friends, published in the 
Public Advertiser, on the political abuses of the time. They 
were brilliant and merciless. Their author very wisely and 
ingeniously kept his secret, so that it is not known even yet 
who wrote these letters. Macaulay loved to talk of the irre- 
sistible proofs for Francis. Carlyle once said, "As if it could 
matter the value of a brass farthing to any living human being 
who was the author of Junius." Is this Junius discussion a 
vital part of the essay ? 

Page 51, line 24. Woodfall. Printer of the Junius letters. 

Page 52, line 6. Doest thou well. Jonah, chap. iv. 9. 

Line 20. Old Sarum. This was one of the " rotten boroughs." 
It had been an important place, but had declined until it had 
not one inhabitant, yet the owner of the land sent two men to 
Parliament to represent it. Leeds and Manchester were two of 
the great manufacturing centres of recent growth that had 
not one member of Parliament. 

Page 54, line 5. Inns of Court. See an article in the Cosmo- 
politan, March, 1900, Where English Lawyers are made. 

Line 14. twenty-one guns. A salute for the president of the 
United States, a sovereign, a chief magistrate, or a member of 
a royal family. Seventeen guns, a salute for a viceroy, a 
governor-general, or a governor. 

Page 55, line 13. Bombay into confusion, beginning of first 
Mahratta war in 1779. See Introduction. 



Page 71] NOTES 213 

Page 57, line 13. Gates. The Popish Plot was a plot 
by the Roman Catholics to burn London, and kill the king, 
Charles II. Gates pretended to have discovered it, and on his 
testimony many innocent people were executed. When the 
excitement calmed down no proof of such a plot could be 
obtained. James II. had Gates publicly whipped "till the 
blood ran in rivulets" for his infamous perjury. Bedloe and 
Dangerfield were two of Gates' accomplices. 

Page 59, line 11. Munny Begum. Begum, Mohammedan 
princess. Munny Begum, mother princess, or queen mother. 

Page 60, line 18. The triumph of Nuncomar. Note the con- 
struction of this paragraph. What is the relation of the other 
sentences to the opening one ? 

Page 64, line 18. superstitious Bengalees. For this and 
other passages on Hindu castes and beliefs, see Introduction^ 
and note on Benares. 

Page 67, line 6. holy waters. Because the Hoogley is a 
mouth of the Ganges, the sacred river. 

Line 25. It is, therefore. Do Macaulay's own premises here 
warrant his conclusion ? 

Page 70, line .1. place-holder, place-hunter. What are our 
American synonyms ? 

Page 71, line 12. Jones's Persian Grammar. Sir William 
Jones founded the Bengal Asiatic Society in 1784. He was the 
first English scholar to master Sanskrit, and to see its value 
in comparative philology. But it was on account of Hastings' 
minutes, to the effect that only through knowledge of the Hindu 



214 NOTES [Page 71 

laws and religion could England hope to get a permanent hold 
on India, that strong encouragement was given at Oxford to the 
study of this, the oldest branch of the family to which our own 
language belongs. 

Page 72, line 9. Lord North. Prime Minister of England 
from 1770 to 1782. Fortunately for the English in India, Lord 
North could not control Indian affairs in Parliament as he con- 
trolled American affairs there. 

Page 78, line 22. eighteen years before. What date ? 

Page 79, line 7. vigor and genius. William Pitt, the elder, 
afterwards Lord Chatham. George the Third, in his determi- 
nation to humble the Whigs, had succeeded in overthrowing 
the Pitt ministry in 1761, and the powers of Europe rejoiced at 
Pitt's downfall because his policy had been too wise and too 
strong to allow them to encroach on English liberties. 

Page 79, line 17. Caipe and Abyla, the pillars of Hercules. 

Page 80, line 5. Mahrattas. See Introduction^ for all these 
names and the history involved. 

Page 83, line 14. a new danger. Beginning of Hyder Ali 
trouble. 

Page 84, line 5. Lally. Sir Eyre Coote commanded the 
English forces in 1760 at the battle of Wandiwash, and com- 
pelled the French to surrender Pondicherry, their last strong- 
hold in India. Lally, who commanded the French forces, was 
afterwards tried in France on three charges — military miscon- 
duct, abuse of his fellow-servants, and pecuniary corruption. 



Page 98] NOTES 215 

He was condemned, and executed with unusual ignominy. 
Lally's son, ten years later, had this judgment annulled ; and 
on appeal was granted a royal edict which set forth a high 
eulogium on the conduct and services of the elder Lally. 

Line 23. Porto Novo and Pollilore. Names of places where 
Eyre Coote won victories when he was sent south by Hastings. 

Page 88, line 1. chambers that overlook the Thames. See 
note on Inns of Court. 

Line 8. imported without modifications. Macaulay under- 
stood this subject, for at the time of writing this passage he had 
completed his work with the India Law Commission. 

Page 89, line 13. the Company's territory. What are the 
numerous devices used in this long paragraph to make it clear, 
vivid, and convincing ? 

Page 90, line 14. alguazils (Arab.). Police officers, consta- 
bles. From same root as vizier. 

Page 93, line 14. rich, quiet, infamous. A curious con- 
junction of words. 

Page 97, line 6. About thirty years before. A periodic sen- 
tence is a device to excite interest by holding the reader in 
suspense. Is it possible to have a periodic paragraph ? 

Page 98, line 6. Hyder All. To understand the difficulties 
that beset Hastings at this time, the position of the various 
governments must be kept in mind. Bombay, Calcutta, and 
Madras were the three great English stations. Bombay had 
brought on a war between the English and the Mahrattas by 



216 NOTES [Page 98 

espousing one of the candidates for Peshwa. The brilliant 
victories over the Mahrattas alluded to by Macaulay in a 
previous paragraph won two of the Mahratta strongholds for 
the British, but the great Mahratta Confederacy was not much 
affected by them ; and Hindus, Mohammedans, and English all 
knew that the Mahrattas were promptly ready to swoop down 
on any or all of them if they showed weakness. Such were 
the conditions surrounding Bombay. In the south Madras was 
threatened by the Mohammedans of the Deccan and of Mysore. 
In 1766 the Great Mogul had ceded a part of the Nizam of 
Deccan's territory, called the Northern Circars, to the English, 
when he ceded Bengal, Behar, and Orissa. But the Nizam of 
the Deccan had declared his states independent of the Mogul's 
empire, so that when the Madras government tried to take 
possession of the Circars the Nizam called Hyder Ali to his 
aid. A peace was patched up between the Nizam and the 
English, but Hyder Ali was allowed to return to Mysore with 
the understanding that the Nizam might make good his losses 
by taking from Mysore. Hyder Ali quarrelled with the Nizam 
of the Deccan, and the English at Madras did not aid the 
Nizam, thus alienating him. Now, in 1780, Hyder Ali took up 
his old grievance against the English, being assisted by the 
French. The French had no hold on the mainland of India ; 
but the French navy was to be feared. England had so many 
quarrels on her hands, with America, France, Spain, and Ire- 
land, that she could not send ships to protect the Indian coast. 
The essay tells the result of this Hyder Ali war. 

After Hastings left India, Tippoo, Hyder All's son, and the 
Nizam combined against the English. This is called the second 
Mysore war, 1790-1792. The third Mysore war, 1799, was 



Page 102] NOTES 217 

carried on by Tippoo. Tippoo was killed at Seringapatam ; 
lie fell fighting in a gateway with the last remnant of his body- 
guard about him. It was to the scenes of these battles that 
Macaulay was attracted when he went to Mysore. Tippoo 
Sultan's kingdom is now divided among the Feudatory States. 

Page 100, line 4. fling his guns into the tanks. The tanks 
are reservoirs built by the English for irrigating purposes. 

Page 102, line 16. Benares. Andre' Chevrillon, in his book 
of travels, In India, said of Benares: "This city is most ex- 
traordinary. Elsewhere religion is only a part of the public 
life ; at Benares there is nothing else to be seen. It fills 
everything, occupying every moment of man's existence, and 
covering the city with temples. There are more than nineteen 
hundred of them, and the multitude of the chapels is past all 
counting. As to the idol population, it is nearly twice as 
numerous as the human, something like five hundred thousand. 
. . . each stone of it is holy. No pollution, no sin can endanger 
the man who dies within its walls. ... In the morning 
when the throbbing disk of the sun rises behind the Ganges 
twenty-five thousand Brahmans, crouching on the river bank 
in the presence of the Hindu multitude, repeat the old Vedic 
hymns to the sun, to the divine river, the primitive powers, the 
visible sources of life. . . . Great patches of flowers are floating 
down the current ; prayers without number are ascending to 
Siva, to Durga, to Ganesa, to Surya, the sun, which has be- 
come burning. In presence of the great river, among the 
pyramids of stone, under the colonnades of the chapels, at the 
foot of these huge edifices — strange as Indian vegetation and 



218 NOTES [Page 102 

Indian religion — swarms the infinite life of India. For a mo- 
ment you seem to feel in yourself the overwhelming sensation 
which, repeated for generations, modifying the structure of the 
Aryan brain, has translated itself into their poems and their 
philosophies." 

Page 103, line 22. lords of Benares. Mr. Wilson, in Mill 
and Wilson's History of India, says that Benares had at no 
time been an independent province. In the reign of the Great 
Mogul Aurungzebe it had been comprised in the province of 
Oude. In 1730 the zemindar, collector, of Benares obtained 
from Mohammed Shah at Delhi the right to adopt the title of 
Kajah ; but, though Rajah, he was still merely the zemindar of 
Benares, subject to the Nabob Vizier of Oude. When the 
English defeated the combined forces of the Nabob Vizier of 
Oude, the Nabob of Bengal, and the Mogul Shah Alam at 
Baxar, 1764, Benares offered to assume the same obligations 
for revenue to England as she had fulfilled to Oude, in return 
for British protection. 

Page 105, line 4. fall of the house of Tamerlane. Tamer, 
the first of the Moguls. 

Page 106, line 24. »a government de facto. Can you not 
prove by running back over the text and the notes that not a 
single power, not even the British, was ruling both in fact and 
by legal right ? 

Page 108, line 19. Almost every question. An obvious 
syllogism. 

Page 119, line 14. dotation, dowry. 



Page 141] NOTES 219 

Page 126, line 22. no connection between the Company. 
There was no connection until after Pitt's India Bill of 1784 
had passed. The Ministry was not responsible, so the Opposi- 
tion could not make an issue of Indian affairs ; but both parties 
could denounce the chief actors. 

Page 131, line 11. Downing Street and Somerset House. 

Metonymies for the of&ces of the Exchequer, the Auditor, and 
the Internal Eevenue. 

Page 135, line 1. beneficent administration, that of Sir 
William Bentinck, Governor General from 1828 to 1835. See 
last sentence of Lord Clive. 

Line 19. Pundits. The learned men, or learned Brahmans. 

Page 140, line 8. zemindars. Collectors of the revenue. 

Line 11. Carlton House. Kesidence of the Prince of Wales. 

Page 141, line 21. Sir Charles Grandison. An allusion to 
the hero of an eight-volume novel of that name, written by 
Samuel Richardson in 1753. Sir Charles, the hero, is an ideal 
fine gentleman, whose manners are always most stately and 
ceremonious. Macaulay was an insatiable novel reader. His 
biographer gives lists of the classics of every land that Macaulay 
had read and reread, but he tells us also the fun Macaulay and 
his sister Hannah took in reading novels. Trevelyan says, " they 
would debate the love affairs and social relations of their own 
circle in a series of quotations from Sir Charles Grandison or 
Evelina.'*'' One of their favorite pastimes was to annotate the 
sentimental novels that were the fashion of their day, as — 
' ' Number of fainting fits : Julia de Clifford eleven, Lady Dela- 



220 NOTES [Page 141 

more four, Lady Theodosia four," etc. These characters are 
all in one book, but not in Sir Charles Grandison. The hero, 
too, of this book is of a sensitive nature. " One of the sweet- 
est smiles that ever animated the face of mortal now diffused 
itself over the countenance of Lord St. Orville as he fell at the 
feet of Julia in a death-like swoon." Macaulay thought he 
could rewrite the whole eight volumes of Sir Charles from 
memory. He certainly could have reproduced Paradise Lost 
and many of the foreign classics. 

Page 148, line 5. young minister. William Pitt, the younger, 
was Prime Minister of England at twenty-five. See Macaulay 's 
essay on him. 

Page 149, line 22. Brooks's. A club-house. A Whig meet- 
ing place. 

Page 150, line 23. Edmund Burke. These paragraphs show 
Macaulay's admiration for the great statesman, Edmund Burke. 
He once undertook a review of Burke'' s Life and Writings for 
the Edinburgh Beview^ but gave it up. He said : " It is a sub- 
ject altogether unmanageable. There is no want of material. 
On the contrary facts and thoughts, both interesting and new, 
are abundant. But this very abundance bewilders me. The 
stage is too small for the actors." 

Page 152, line 23. Las Casas, or Clarkson. Las Casas, a 
missionary in the West Indies and Mexico in the sixteenth cen- 
tury. Clarkson, a coworker with Wilberforce and Macaulay's 
father for the abolition of slavery in the West Indies. 

Page 155, line 10. streets of London. In this paragraph 
Macaulay's skilful handling of form, color, and motion, and of 



Page 173] NOTES 221 

allusion, details, metaphors, metonymies, antitheses, strange 
things, and strange names, shows us the worth of specific words 
in descriptive writing. 

Page 156, line 6. Stamp Act. All good Americans should 
read Burke's American Taxation Speech and his Conciliation 
with the Colonies. 

Page 161, line 5. sworn of the privy council. Become a 
member of the Sovereign's council, which is composed of the 
great officers of the kingdom, the royal princes, the great judges, 
and other persons of rank and position. 

Page 167, line 4. First Lord of the Treasury, Chancellor. 

Titles of members of the English Cabinet, or Ministry. 

Line 19. prorogation. Parliament's annual sessions are usu- 
ally from February to August. The prorogation is the act of 
adjournment for the annual recess. 

Page 171, line 25. High Court of Parliament. The House 
of Commons must impeach, and the House of Lords must try 
the case. 

Page 172, line 6. hall of William Rufus. This hall still 
stands, and is a part of the new House of Parliament. There 
is an illustrated article on this hall in Harper''s Monthly for 
November, 1884. 

Page 173, line 19. Siddons. Mrs. Siddons, the great actress, 
She was at the height of her fame at this time. Lady Macbeth 
was one of her favorite characters. Reynolds painted her as 
the Tragic Muse. Gainsborough's painting of her is in the 
National Gallery. 



222 NOTES [Page 173 

Line 22. historian. Edv/ard Gibbon. Decline and Fall of 
the Roman Empire. 

Page 174, line 2. greatest painter and greatest scholar. Sir 
Joshua Reynolds and Samuel Parr. 

Line 14. plighted his faith. The Prince of Wales, afterwards 
George IV., was privately married to Mrs. Pitzherbert. It was 
contrary to law because she was a Roman Catholic. Royal 
Marriage Act, 1772. 

Line 15. Saint Cecilia. Saint Cecilia is the special patron 
saint of music and musicians. Raphael and many later artists 
have given their conception of her. Dryden's Ode to Saint 
Cecilia and his ode Alexander'' s Feast were written for musical 
feasts in her honor. The legend of her martyrdom is well told 
in an illustrated article of Harper''s Monthly, November, 1880. 
The allusion here is to Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, whom 
Reynolds painted in the character of Saint Cecilia. 

Line 20, Mrs. Montague, who often entertained the members 
of the Literary Club — Burke, Goldsmith, Johnson, Reynolds, 
Garrick, etc. 

Line 23. Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. The story runs 
that she bought at least one vote for Fox in his contest for 
Parliament in 1784 by a kiss. Her portraits by Gainsborough 
and Reynolds are very lovely. 

Page 175, line 17. Mens aequa in arduis. A mind un- 
moved amid difficulties. In connection with this Macaulay 
says, " He was a man for whom nature had done much of what 
the stoic philosophy pretended, and only pretended, to do for 
its disciples. ' Mens aequa in arduis ' is his inscription upder 



Page 192] NOTES 223 

the picture in the Government House at Calcutta, and never 
was there a more appropriate motto." 

Page 176, line 13. bag, bag-wig. A wig with a bag to hold 
the back hair, fashionable in the eighteenth century. 

Line 25. Fox. Charles James Fox, 1749-1806, statesman and 
orator. Burke called him " the greatest debater the world ever 
saw." His is a very interesting biography. Sheridan, Eichard 
Brinsley Sheridan, dramatist, orator, and statesman, 1751-1816, 
a brilliant speaker, as Macaulay shows. He is the author of 
the plays The Bivals and School for Scandal. 

Page 178, line 2. morning sun. The sittings of Parliament 
are opened at 4 p. m., and often last till "morning sun." 

Line 4. Charles Earl Grey. Earl Grey, a great Whig leader 
in Macaulay's own days in Parliament. Prime Minister when 
the Eeform Bill of 1832 was carried. 

Page 179, line 9. taste and sensibility. See previous note 
for the novels that fostered this " sensibility." 

Page 185, line 23. unpopular. Burke did not believe in the 
French Revolution. He said, " Whenever a separation is made 
between liberty and justice, neither is safe." But he stood 
alone in Parliament. The Whigs followed Fox, and the Tories 
followed Pitt, in their approval of the Revolution. Later the 
country understood Burke's view, but it was too late to save the 
friendships of the great Whigs. Macaulay describes their atti- 
tudes toward each other in a subsequent paragraph. 

Page 192, line 19. Anthony Pasquin, pasquinade, lampoon. 
Macaulay said of him, " The wretched Tony Pasquin, who first 
defended and then libelled him [Hastings]." 



224 NOTES [Page 195 

Page 195, 1. 3. Pitt retired. Pitt, the younger, resigned the 
premiership because the king refused liis consent to tlie removal 
of the remaining civil disabilities of the Roman Catholics. 

Line 8. Addington. Prime Minister after Pitt resigned. 

Line 9. resigning the Treasury, resigning the ofi&ce of Prime 
Minister. The people regarded Mr. Addington as a weak and 
narrow-minded man. 



INDEX TO NOTES 



A government de facto, 218. 

A new danger, 214. 

About thirty years before, 215. 

Addiugton, 224. 

Algernon Sidney, 209. 

Alguazils, 215. 

Allahabad and Corah, 208, 210, 1. 

Almost every question, 218. 

Anthony Pasquin, 223. 

Assumed the royal title, 211. 

At present the Governor, 208, 

Iviii, lix. 
Augustulus, 208. 
Aurungzebe, 211, xlvi. 

Bag, 223. 

Baxar, 218, 1. 

Benares, 217. 

Beneficent administration, 219. 

Black Hole of Calcutta, 206, Ivi. 

Bombay into confusion, 212, 

xlviii. 
Brahma, 209, xxxv, xl. 
Brooks's, 220. 
Burke, Edmund, 220, 223. 



Calpe and Abyla, 214. 
Carlton House, 219. 
Chambers that overlook the 
Thames, 215. 

Q 225 



Chancellor, 221. 

Charles Earl Grey, 223. 

Chiltern Hundreds, xxx. 

Churchill, 204. 

Clarksou, 220. 

Clive, 205, 206, 208, 209, Iv. 

Colman, 204. 

Corah and Allahabad, 208, 210, 1. 

Cowper, 204. 

Cumberland, 204. 

Directors, 210. 

Diwan, 208. 

Doest thou well, 212. 

Dotation, 218. 

Double government, 208. 

Downing Street, 219. 

Dupleix, 205, Iv. 

East India Company, 205, 208, 

210, 219, lii, Ivii. 
Edmund Burke, 220, 223. 

Factories, 205. 

Factors, 205. 

Fall of the house of Tamerlane, 

218, xliv. 
Ferdusi, 207. 

First Lord of the Treasury, 221. 
Fling his guns into the tanks, 217. 



226 



INDEX TO NOTES 



Foundation, 205. 
Fox, 222, 223. 

General dissolution, 211, xlvi, 
xlix. 

Genuine, 208. 

Georgiana, Duchess of Devon- 
shire, 222. 

Ghizni, 211. 

Gleig, 203, xxix. 

Great Mogul, 210, xliv, li. 

Greatest painter and greatest 
scholar, 222. 

Hafiz and Ferdusi, 207. 
Hall of William Rufus, 221. 
Hexameters and pentameters, 

205. 
High Court of Parliament, 221. 
Hindoo Brahmin, 209. 
Hindus, 209, xxxiii. 
Historian, 222. 
Holy waters, 213, 217. 
Hyder Ali, 215. 

Important, lucrative, splendid, 

209. 
Imported without modifications, 

215, xxvii. 
Indiaman, 207. 

Innocence and greatness, 205. 
Inns of Court, 212. 
It is, therefore, 213. 

Jones's Persian Grammar, 213. 



Keen, severe, malevolent, 207. 
Khan, 209. 

Lally, 214. 

Las Casas, or Clarkson, 220. 

Leadenhall Street, 210. 

Leeds and Manchester, 212. 

Letters of Junius, 212. 

Living, 204. 

Lloyd, 204. 

Lord North, 214. 

Lords of Benares, 217. 

Maharajah, 209. 
Mahommed Reza Khan, 209. 
Mahrattas, 214, xlvii. 
Meer Jaffier, 206, 209. 
Mens aequa in arduls, 222. 
Merchants, 205. 
Mint at Oxford, 204. 
Mohammedans, xli. 
Morning sun, 223. 
Mrs. Montague, 222. 
Mucins, 209. 
Munny Begum, 213. 

Nizam, 208. 

No connection with the Company, 
219, Iviii. 

Gates. 213. 

Old Sarum, 212, xix. 

Ouse, 204. 

Pagoda, 207. 
Penal Code, xxvii. 



INDEX TO NOTES 



227 



Peshwa, xlvii, Ixii. 

Pitt, the elder, 214. 

Pitt, the younger, 220, 223. 

Place holder, place hunter, 213. 

Plassey, 206, Ivi. 

Plighted his faith, 222. 

Popish plot, 213. 

Porto Novo and PoUilore, 215. 

Present government, lix. 

Proprietors, 210. 

Prorogation, 221. 

Pundits, 219. 

Reform Bill, 207, 212, xx. 
Renowned Chamberlain, 204. 
Resigning the Treasury, 224. 
Rich, quiet, infamous, 215. 
Rohillas, 211, 
Rotten boroughs, 207, 212, xix. 

Saint Cecilia, 222. 

Savajee, xlvii. 

Sepoy, 209. 

Sermons and rupees, 210. 

Seventeen guns, 212. 

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 223. 

Sheridan, Mrs. Richard Brinsley, 

222. 
Siddons, 221. 

Sir Charles Grandison, 219. 
Somerset House, 219. 
Stamp Act, 221. 
Streets of London, 220. 
Studentship, 205. 
Style, 204, 205, 20H, 207, 210, 213, 

215, 218, 220, Ixxvii. 



Superstitious Bengalees, 213, 217, 

xxxviii. 
Surajah Dowlah, 206. 
Sworn of the privy council, 221. 

Tamer, xliv. 

Taste and sensibility, 223. 

Temptations, 204. 

Teviotdale, 210. 

The Company's territory, 215. 

The Hastings, 204. 

The prince, 206. 

The Regulating Act, 211. 

The triumph of Nuncomar, 213. 

The war of the succession, 205. 

There were two governments, 

208. 
Tippoo Sultan, 216, xxvi. 
Tithes, 204. 
Treason, 206. 
Twenty-one guns, 212. 

Uncovered, 204. 
Unpopular, 223. 

Vansittart, Mr., 207. 
Vigor and genius, 214. 



Woodfall, 212. 
Writers, 205. 
Writership in the 
Company, 205. 



East India 



Young minister, 220, 223. 
Zemindars, 219. 



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